The Heart's Direction
by Kid Vegeta
Summary: It is four years after the Cell Games and Gohan is still in grief over his father's death . Unexpectedly, Goku returns to him, and newly romantic feelings begin to emerge betwixt the two. A love story. YAOI. Incomplete.
1. Chapter 1 - Four Years Later

Chapter 1

Four Years Later

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball, or Dragon Ball Z/GT, nor do I make money off of these FANfictions.

A/N: Fair warning. This is a love story between father and son, Goku and Gohan. If you don't like yaoi, goodbye. If you don't like the incest pairing, goodbye. If you don't like the coupling of yaoi and incest, then goodbye. All those who remain, please enjoy and review, and continue to follow the story.  
It is a love story, so don't expect smut sex everywhere, but do expect it to be hot and heavy and a-plenty when it happens. Sex scenes will definitely be added at the right times. You've been forewarned.  
This is my first fanfiction ever, so I'm scaredly excited.

The reader should have a basic knowledge of what happened in Dragon Ball Z canon in order to understand the story to its fullest extent. There are spoilers lurking through the chapters.  
The story begins a little over 4 years after the Cell Games. Gohan is therefore 15 years old. Goten is born and is 4 years old.

* * *

While it was true that Gohan had accepted his father's decision to stay in Otherworld after the defeat of Cell, he stilled cried. In the silent nights when he lay wide awake in his bed, he remembered. Each meal that he sat down for felt more empty and insipid by the day. Against all attempts to break free of the corroding misery, his belly continued to harbor the terrible hollow vacancy. The solitude made him inwardly bleak and despairing. After having spent an entire year with his father, surrounded by the white iridescence of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, his sudden departure was crippling.

And so it was to the river, where his father used to take him fishing, that Gohan would escape to when not under the strict eye of either his punitive mother or stick-lashing tutors. He'd lay by the river for hours in the sunlight and breeze, sequestered in the swath of wind-blown sward and tree, pretending that his father was there with him, jibing and diving wild into the river waters with heroic enthusiasm.

_Gohan, come in. The water's great!  
Look, Daddy! Look what I found!  
Oh, wow, what a big fish. You sure you can carry that all the way back home by yourself?  
See, Daddy, I can do it.  
Haha, what a strong, little man you've become, Gohan! You make me proud!_

The corners of his lips twitched slightly upward.

He had been four years old then, more than three times less his age of present. But the memory still lived fresh as though it had only happened yesterday. He was beside himself with the rerunning of it, and there was no one else in the great wide world whom he loved more.

In a rare moment, he croaked. Being that he was alone, he allowed the dam in his heart to give way under the deluge of rekindling memories; he cried openly, safe from the sleuthing eyes of those various others whom would adjudge him as weak for the tears—or worse, juvenile—for such had always been the case. But it was from those very tears and deep feelings that his uniquely inborn powers were resourced.

Whimpers wrung out of the tightened muscles of his larynx, and he was in that disastrous moment again: crumpled to knees, with his father smiling gently down at him. With the wind produced by Cell's energy boisterous in his ears, and dust blaring into his blue eyes, Gohan cried after him—_No, come back!_ In a mere flash, without warning, the sense of his father's ki vanished completely off the face of the earth.

Only when the memory had retracted back into the blank receptacle of his mind did he notice the yellow light of his ki blazing erratically. Gold hues shocked through the strands of his hair, and a cold blue glazed the bare surface of his irises.

Steadying himself, the energy dimmed about his fidgeting frame and he fell completely silent, cheeks cold and tear-streaked, limbs limp as water at his sides.

He blinked at the scalding irritation disrupting the vision in his eyes. Tearing up the earth in his fists, he let the tightness in his chest come undone, only to poison the hybrid blood in his veins with replete agony. He could only be thankful for the privacy and time that he could consign to this lonely wallowing, when the grief became too much to bare in sunny silence.

Hauling up knees to his chest, Gohan rolled on his side and buried a ruddy cheek into the pebbled dirt.

_Hey, are you just going to drag that whopper in the ground the rest of the way? How about this. I carry you in one arm, and that fish in the other?  
Yay! Daddy's super strong! Super strong!_

Bereft of his father, seemingly bereft of everything, he shook disconsolate. "Why..." he groped for the answer, knowing well that speaking to himself effected toward naught. "Why did you have to do it, Dad?"

_I will always protect you, Gohan._

"You promised. But—how can you do that, Dad? How can you protect me when you're not even here?" He choked ragged on the words.

The soil mingled with the salty moisture leaking down his cheeks, and the two substances frothed into a muddy streak down the one side of his face.

_Listen to the birds, Gohan, and close your eyes. Appreciate the world and all the life kept within it. It's a beautiful one._

Again, he dug into the grass, threatening to uproot the handful. Only as those distance words were recalled did he stay the vicious grip with which he scarred the earth with. The wind buffeted him from behind, and he sniveled. "Dad. I want you back."

* * *

The sun advanced far toward the west, signaling the coming evening. It overhung the distant mountain ranges precariously, like a ripe orange bowing the bough, ready to plunge from the tree vine. Immersed in pre-dusk shades of gold and peony pink, the young demi-Saiyan dreamed fitfully. Loose dirt whirled in circles about the supine boy, brushing his skin lightly, awakening him at the barest touch. He winced at the sting and ache assaulting his head and arid eyes. Slow to rise, he gasped for air as though he had not been able to breathe adequately throughout the entire time that he'd been out.

For a muzzy moment, he almost thought that his dad was nearby. He could have sworn he had been clinging onto him like a whiny dollop of glue, like he always had in the bygone years of his toddler-hood.

_Race you home, Gohan!_

Immediately he perked. Hopping to sleep-benumbed feet, he hollered to the specter-thin voice, "You're on!" and was off.

The wind sheered through his hair, cooling his face like a splash of clear waters. The sun lowered ahead, blinding him of the environs around. Gohan jumped, laughed, and soared, listening within as his dad egged him on.

_ If I beat you, I'm going to eat all your dinner before you even get there, Gohan!_ _Better hurry!_

In a short spurt of flight he scaled a low bluff. He grinned with the fond memory of all the chases that had passed in times past, and whooped to the skies with a fist outwardly thrust.

Goku always let him win, and always declared Gohan to be the fastest little bolt of aerodynamic lightning that had ever been forged within the levin-smithery of the gods.

_I'm on your heels. Watch it!  
No fair! Waah! No fair!_

Narrowly, he avoided running headlong into one of the great old oak trees that they used to swing in and play under. He jerked to the side and reopened his eyes, barely having even realized that he had had them closed to daydreams.

Ahead nestled the rotunda home, a short smoke-stack signaling from the chimney. Even from that distance he could smell the dinner cooking on the fire and feel the genial atmosphere that his grandpa, the Ox King, had reestablished while living there.

Grandpa had decided to take up tentative quarters with them, believing it best to stand in for the irreplaceable hole that Goku had left there when he died. Though he never dreamed of fully compensating for the gap, big and jolly as a guy he might have been, his voluble personality proved indispensible to mitigating what could have otherwise festered into a hopeless melancholy.

Emotional declines having been successfully averted from the worse, the pain of his fatherly separation from Goku now only felt like a dream-state paralysis to Gohan. Though he studied, ate, slept, and lived on, there existed a stagnancy in his heart that he couldn't recuperate from. Even with the most precious of distractions there to deter his bleak mind from brooding, such as the eventual birth of his little brother Goten, or his mom's invariably cheerful, yet at times stern, disposition, he ached numbly and terribly.

Four year-old Goten would be frantic with the stomach fits by now, Gohan thought, surely complaining of his tardiness like his father so often did. Not wanting the little guy to starve himself into a stick-thin emaciation, Gohan powered up for the remainder of the way home. Lifting feet off the ground, he flew in a blaze-field of ki, feeling his father at his heels, hearing him chase after through the wind on speedy wing beats, laughing loud.

Gohan struck the landing to the front entrance with his heel.

_Oh, gosh, you beat me!  
I win, I win!  
Suppose this means you're still the fastest in the universe. Darn, Gohan. I gotta train more!_

* * *

Belly full, Gohan spent the rest of his hours reading in his room until bedtime. With the window unlatched and drawn open, and the summer heat weaving placid meanders through the air, Gohan fell into the goose-feathered pillow and awaited a sleep that would never come.

After an hour of ineffective waiting, he rose up off the bed. His head was dull and addled slightly from the taxation brought about by his physical and mental distress. His eyelids hung low yet unclosing, and his body felt numb for the want of elusive dreams. He approached the window, draped his chin over the ledge and sighed deep. Critter-life chittered and chirped, louder than the waterfall his ears picked up in the distance. A gibbous moon whitewashed his face to a pale blue and the stars shined like refractive diamonds in a black cavern. Equations and grammatical sentences clogged up the infinite tickings of his tireless mind. Squiggles, symbols, and shorthand writing scritch-scratched like a mirage before his eyes.

Sleep would never come.

Then something in the air changed. Everything shifted, yet was the same, but different.

A space was filled right down to the tiny convolutions of its outline, replacing the empty slot that had previously been there. The drooped demi-Saiyan roused from his tedious stupor, only mildly curious for the perceived sensory change. Raising chin sluggishly, he peered through the starlit darkness and saw, like a gossamer wraith, his father standing outdoors amid the waversome sea of rolling hills and dirt troughs.

The beating of his heart accelerated to an impossible rate. Gohan gazed disbelievingly, feeling as one gone insane by the volatility of his own bereavement. And yet no matter how he squinted, rubbed at his eyes, or shook the gauze out from his befuddled mind, there stood Goku, tall, in the familiar orange gi, poised with fingers pressed to his forehead. The kanji worn on his back was unmistakable. And that hair. The ring of faintly fluorescent yellow hovering above his head indicated to his abiding state of deadness. But there he stood—solid body, spirit, and all—completely whole and returned. His father. Goku.

The Saiyan turned on his heel.

Dumbly, Gohan froze.

His eyes smiled in greeting. Goku grinned toothsomely, chuckling low under his breath, then waved to his son with a merry zeal.

Stricken aghast, Gohan stood stiffly in his place, wearing a loud look of mute shock. Certainly, it was a dream. His father appearing out of the blue—it was impossible. And yet. Beneath the vying bouts of incredulity and wonder, he sensed the familiar energy of his father centered on the very ground he stood on.

With a frolicsome gesticulation, Goku took off on flighty feet.

"No, wait!" Gohan trundled over the sill, fell dizzily, stomped himself back upright, and chased hard.

The air slowed him. The very universe slowed him. The darkness was a realm as thick and obstructive as pitch. Goku was fastly escaping the line of his sight too quickly. All he could do was set his eyes upon the bright orange dot receding ahead of him and scream: "Daddy, wait!"

Free-spirited laughter dragged in the wake of the orange object.

The brightness of the gi disappeared into a forest of stark and pedant trees. Without hesitation Gohan dove headlong after, feeling everything short of fear, save for the fear of losing the trail. He could sense Goku's raising energy level ahead and clung onto that imperatively for direction. No matter where it went or disappeared off to, he would chase it into the pit of—anything.

Animals roared. Great reptiles reared at his passing, and soon he was flying, raising over the treetops, focusing his ki to speed up.

Suddenly, Goku's energy halted in its place. Gohan landed nearby at a wary distance. Glancing around, the demi-Saiyan ascertained that his father had taken them to their pastime refuge. The river and brooks babbled black. The trees obscured like black cotton. Goku glowed vibrant in the midst of the drab, dismal darkness.

Without preamble, he divested himself of his gi and weighted blue shirt. "Man, is it a nice night out," he said. "This is _great_!" He turned round toward his son and smiled hugely like a child in a playhouse. His son sulked back at him. Goku blinked. "Something wrong?"

Gradually, his eyes climbed up toward where the halo hovered. His response was little more than a breathless murmur. "Daddy... This is a dream. I'm dreaming. Aren't I?"

Goku's expression eased at the confused, guarded look of his son. "No, Gohan. You're not dreaming."

"Then—how?" His voice cracked.

Tossing the blue shirt aside, Goku picked apart at the sash. "King Kai helped me out," he said simply. "I guess you could say that I'm playing hooky with the Otherworld." He grinned mischievously.

"But, Dad... "

The gravity in his son's painful moue sobered Goku out of his own frivolity. He knew that his son deserved an honest explanation for his unannounced, illicit intrusion. "I could hear you, Gohan." He watched intently as the glittering of his son's big black eyes trained back down to lock gazes with him. "I could hear you right in here—" Goku thumped a palm over his heart. "Every word that you spoke to me, they all came." He threw the sash aside. "After all these years I can't stand knowing that I've left you in such a broken state. 'I need you,' you said, when you and everyone else were planning to wish me back alive with the Dragon Balls. The guilt you felt for my death consumed you the second I took Cell from earth, even though it was my own choice and responsibility to do what it was I _had_ to do." He loosed his pants. "Only when you thought I would be back was your feeling of guilt ever put to rest. But, instead of making you happy again, Gohan, I left you with that feeling imbedded deep, where it was able to grow and spoil all your joy. I'm aware of how that feeling arose in you regularly, because I too could feel it, every time, as if we were connected somehow. And if I felt even half of what you experienced in your own pain, Gohan, no words could ever express how sorry I am for the way I left you." He shrugged. "So, here I am."

Reaching for the hem of hope: "For good?"

The look he gave expressed a stubborn-willed remorse. "No. Not for good."

Gohan's shoulders slumped.

"You asked me for one more day. Do you remember?" He stood patient, eyeing his miserable son as he shifted diffidently from foot to foot. "But I would be found out if I dared to come during the daytime like you've asked. Otherworld would be more likely to discover me here with you in this realm, don't you see? Not to mention that someone alive on this earth might somehow find us. So I'm doing the second best thing I could think of, which is—"

"Coming at night."

Goku nodded.

After a minute, Gohan cried, "But Dad, it's not fair!"

Wrinkling an eyebrow, "What's not fair?"

"I wanted an _entire_ day with you. It's what I asked for, isn't it?" His point seemed to make little sense to his father, and so he said, "Nights are shorter than daytime, Dad. Especially at this time of year. Can't you make it two nights?"

At that, Goku brightened visibly. "Tell you what. I'll do better than that. How about I play hooky all the nights I dare please!"

"Gosh. Can you do that?"

"Well," he tilted his head thoughtfully. "It certainly increases the likelihood of my getting caught by some Otherworld authority. And King Kai sure isn't going to like it. After all, it took me _all_ these years just to convince him to let me here this one time. Ha!"

"Will you get in trouble if you get caught?"

Goku shrugged. "It's my understanding that going beyond the realm of the dead is breaking the rules of _being_ dead, but I don't know. They might take away my body and turn me into one of those cloud-things of cotton-stuff instead." He hummed at the thought. "That can't be all that bad, really. They're kind of cute! I wonder if I'd taste good as a cotton." He mused and scratched at his own head. "Hey, but don't worry, son, they'll _never_ find me out. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's sneaking around, so no worries. When King Kai gives me the warning I can Instant Transmission back over to him in a heartbeat. Now are you just going to stand there all night, or are you going to join me for a swim?" Turning around, hopping out of his trousers, Goku sprung and belly flopped.

Removing his pajamas, exulting over his dad's formulated plot, Gohan leapt in after and tackled Goku beneath the water. Fully submerged, he dispelled the chill of the river with a small kick-start to his own ki. They romped and played—as they always had played, Goku's familiar laughter and glib joking the only sound to be heard above the slosh and splash.

It wasn't long before Gohan's tussling turned into a full-bodied grapple. Goku fell backward into the waters, re-immersing them both. Clinging tight, opting out of the fun, Gohan weathered the downward plunge with iron-locked arms. Goku wiggled and kicked until both their heads bobbed above the waterline. "Whoa, there, little guy!"

The adhesive young teen stuck to him adamantly. Gohan trembled, spewing water out of his nose while he coughed. "Daddy." He cried with his old childhood wont, then looked up.

Arms came around to snuggle him near, making Gohan's soured grimace right itself back up. The halo cast a soft light around his dad, making him look supernal like an angel. Lurching upward from his grip-hold, Gohan kissed Goku roughly on the cheek and wriggled higher along the torso so that his head lay smashed into the warm crook of his neck and shoulder.

Though Gohan had grown in size since the last time he had seen his father, he was still undersized in comparison to the grown man. It made him feel like a small child again, gripping onto him for desperate dear life like a withered gnat.

"Hey," Goku's voice soothed. "There's no need for that. I'm right here."

"What—about—_hck_—Mom?"

"ChiChi's grieved already for me, son." He ruffled the black spikes of his boy's hair. "You, however, can't seem to stop, even when I'm standing right here in front of you. She'll be fine, Gohan. I'm only here for you. I'm all yours, you hear?"

"But she misses you just as much, Daddy." It was a small lie; no one missed his dad as much as he did.

With a firm grip on his son's shoulders, Goku gently lifted him away, and wiped at the mess of tears reddening his eyes. His gentled expression quickly changed into a hardened look of concern. "Gohan, this has to stop."

"Then come back." Goku sighed, indicative of his abiding refusal, which only made Gohan plead all the more. "Don't make me beg, Dad. Please, I need you! Don't you understand at all that if you hadn't had died to begin with, you'd still be here with me now—without that stupid halo over your head? It makes no sense to leave things broken the way that they are! Just come back." He grew antsy with the hope of convincing him with his next conceived argument. "Let's pretend, Dad. Pretend I was never such a fool in the first place when fighting Cell. Let's pretend I did what I was supposed to do from the beginning when I unleashed my hidden power. Let's pretend and make it all as if it never even..." He trailed off at the stern look he had earned. Gohan wiped the drainage from his nose with an arm and hiccupped.

Scooping up palmfuls of water from the moon-reflective river surrounding them, Goku rinsed off the salty tears from his cheeks, gently wiped the boy's salt-burned eyes, and brushed back the drenched rattails of his fringe.

Gohan looked beautiful in the bright shade of the moonlight. He had never noticed it before; not this brand of physical beauty, anyway, that made his heart tighten and skip with a strange force. He didn't like the pain marring up the perfect planes of his son's face, as much of a darling sight as it was. The twisting and wringing about Gohan's mouth was a troublesome thing for him to abide. He loathed the tears and loved the boy to no end. He loved Gohan, so much so that he couldn't stand to see him suffer and cry needlessly.

But it was how things had to be, for the good of everything.

"Let's dry off," Goku said. He had been staring at his son unanswerably for far too long now, admiring the whitely innocence.

Climbing out of the water, the two laid side-by-side and warmed themselves with an unconscious effort of their ki. The ground below reabsorbed the dripping water, and the wind plucked at the river-beads on their bared flesh.

Neither spoke, and Gohan's begging went no further. But he stared across at his dad with purblind longing.

"Close your eyes," Goku whispered, then turned to regard him. "I know you're sleepy."

"No, Dad." If he fell asleep, he'd awaken to find that it had all been a dream after all. He knew better. And he couldn't bear it. He had to at least milk this dream for all that it was worth. "I'm wide awake, now." He bolt upright in his place as if to prove the point. But just as quickly he relented to the truth. "If I close my eyes you'll be—"

"Back tomorrow," Goku countered intuitively. "I said I would come as often as I would, didn't I? Have I ever given you a reason to doubt my word, Gohan?"

"No. But—"

"You worry more than your mother. I won't get caught. Now come here." He nestled Gohan into his arm and rubbed a knuckle ferociously into his hair. "Lighten up!"

With a giggle Gohan curled in against him, burying himself beneath the cradled arm, feeling sought for and safe, warm and needed, and deeply, deeply loved. Wiggling about until his ear rest over his father's bare chest, where the dead heart still sung its slow meter, Gohan allowed himself to drift.

Goku hardly minded the twining, living warmth of his son wedged up securely against him. He closed his eyes as well, breathing shallow so as not to bother the boy out of his light sleep. Though they exchanged body heat effectively enough, being naked and exposed to the world, he bid up just enough ki for the two of them to supplement the shared comfort. Snuggled sound, they slept until the winkling of the dawn's blush; until King Kai's shrill telepathic shouting broke Goku out of the dream-well of perfect sleep.


	2. Chapter 2 - Breathing, Beating, Alive

Chapter 2

Breathing, Beating, Alive

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball, or Dragon Ball Z/GT, nor do I make money off of these FANfictions.

A/N: Fair warning again, this is an incest yaoi love story. The pairing is Goku x Gohan.  
I know Gregory and Bubbles kind of disappeared after a while in the anime, but I wanted to include them!  
Review and enjoy!

* * *

Gohan woke up in his bed, unsure if whether or not he had really seen his dad, and unsure then how he had gotten back into his bedroom. He didn't have any dreams while he had slept in the grips of the large arm. Did that mean, then, that his dad returning to him had really been the dream after all?

He was fully clothed again but still smelled of the river, which was all the proof that he needed to know for certain that the previous night had indeed occurred.

A strangely good feeling settled upon him, making him smile despite his groggy state. He had seen Goku, his father. He had come back especially for him, and broken the rules of the Otherworld no less. All for him. He felt giddy and in raptures just thinking about it.

If everything he said to his father made it to him in the Otherworld as he had claimed, he whispered under breath, "Dad, I love you. Thank you."

What was his father thinking in response? He smiled with wonder and knew he'd ask the next time he saw him.

Hopping out of bed, he raced to get washed up and clothed. He stopped short on the way out of his bedroom as he noticed something laying on his desk that hadn't been there before. Pencil and paper. On the paper was scripted in waywardly handwriting, "One day, I'll beat you."

"Oh, really!" he crinkled up the paper with a snicker and tossed it in the bin. "You forget, Mr. Strongest In The Universe, that _I'm_ the fastest." With that, he sprinted out the door for a heaping bite of breakfast.

* * *

After a long day's studying, Gohan flopped onto his bed and glowered at the clock blinking opposite the bed. There were still a couple hours left before nightfall, and he was already restless.

Kicking up a heel, he frowned sourly.

_Maybe I could just blow out the sun, if it would only hurry him along_, he thought then. "Dammit. Hurry up, Dad," he snapped out loud. "Sick of waiting."

* * *

"That boy of yours is one impatient crime to humanity, Goku!" King Kai groused dramatically.

"Go easy on the little guy. After all, I feel the same way!" Goku stretched his limbs after the routine work-out he had just finished up with. "Can't wait to see him again!"

"How did I allow you to talk me into doing this," he grumbled. "If the Grand Kai finds out about this—!"

"But Goku _didn't_ talk you into it, King Kai!" Gregory chimed. "You felt sorry for his son, and that's why you finally decided to help Goku, so fess up!" Bubbles hooted in agreement.

"He's a cute kid," Goku said. "Hard to say no to him. And he's growing up so fast! Think he grew half a foot since the last time I saw him. And he's _very_ handsome. Gonna be a heart-stopper one day, that's for sure." He finished the stretch then turned to King Kai. "Can I go now?"

"Goku, how rude! Don't I even get a 'please' and 'thank you'? Mind your manners!"

"Sorry!" Goku threw up his hands in mock surrender. "Can I go now, _please_, King Kai? He's bored! I can hear him from here, and he thinks it's all my fault that I'm not there yet. Come on, _please_?"

"No!" Bubbles danced a jig around the Kai.

"Aw, come on! You're gonna make him worry!"

King Kai struggled with maintaining a straight-faced front, arms folded impassively across his stout chest and antennae pricking through the air. But the Saiyan had surely hit the sore spot.

* * *

Twilight dimmed, and Gohan's expectation dimmed along with it, though it wasn't even nighttime yet. He sunk into the sheets and solicited by the voice of his heart for his dad to make haste.

Then, as if on cue: "Hey, Gohan."

He jerked upright. "Da—!"

"_Shhh_!" He pointed a thumb towards the door. "ChiChi's in the next room."

"You sure you don't want to see her?" He wrinkled a brow. "Or even Goten?"

He paused momentarily at the mention of his second son's name. "Well... I probably shouldn't. I came here for you only, remember? Don't you think it'd be kind of bad if I came into his life and then, poof, was gone again?" He shrugged with a troublesome swerve of his mouth.

"As long as you're sure. But I know he'd love to meet you, even if it was only just once." He flung himself at Goku and held on. "I missed you all day myself, Dad."

"I could tell." He pressed lightly on the small of his back. "I missed you, too, Gohan. It took some twisting of King Kai's arm, but he let me come early since no eyes were surveillancing this part of the universe. I want to spend more time with you before you pass out on me early again, like you did last night." He pouted. "That was no fun."

Gohan flushed slightly and gave him a reproachful look.

Goku displayed a mouthful of teeth. "Kidding! I came late last night, after all, didn't I?—that was my fault. Anyways, I still had the best time being with you again. It's been too long."

"We do spend more time separated by circumstance than together," Gohan muttered with a tinge of regret. It was the way it had always been. But then had come the allotted year which they had spent alone together, albeit for the purposes of training. Admittedly, it had been the best year of his whole fifteen years of living: waking to his dad's cheerful face, eating, training, bathing, playing, and sleeping with him.

The demi-Saiyan placed his right hand over Goku's heart and shifted it about nervously as if uncertain where to rightly place it. He had planned to ask: "Did you hear me when I woke up this morning, Dad?"

A nod. "And you're very welcome, son. But you know, we both have King Kai to thank for this more than anyone. Without his keeping watch between realms, I don't think that this would be nearly as easy."

Gohan smiled, truly appreciative. It wasn't as if anyone was keeping any particularly stern vigilance over the realms—almost no one but his father knew how to perform the Instant Transmission—but the possibility was still there. The laws of existence certainly had not been created only to be broken so flippantly.

"Dad, I've been wondering." It was an odd question that nagged. "If you can hear my voice all the way in Otherworld, are you able to hear my heart as well?" Inwardly, he hoped not.

"Well, no," Goku said, not quite understanding. "But, why, should I need to?" He stroked the back of Gohan's neck when the teen rubbed his ear against where his hand had been momentarily placed.

"I meant, does _your_ heart hear mine talk? You can feel what I feel from afar, you said, and you hear when I speak out loud to you. But do you know what my heart is saying deep within, without it being spoken?"

Goku blinked at his son's odd behavior. "Um. Son, I don't think that's possible."

_Neither did I think it was possible for you to hear my prayers, Dad, but it's so._ "So you only hear when I speak something out loud," Gohan reiterated nervously.

"That seems to be the way of it."

Saying nothing more on the subject, Gohan refocused his attention to the symphony of sounds in his dad's dead body. "It's just so strange," he said. "To know that you're dead, but everything's alive in there. It's the most beautiful sound ever, Dad. But... "

Goku pulled gently away and scanned his son's face curiously, but the wide-eyed expression was unreadable. To his surprise, Gohan took his hand in his and thrust it over his smaller chest near the heart. "Do you feel it beating?"

Goku's eyes were saucer-like, blinking inquisitively. Beneath his vast palm he could feel the strength of the pulsations beneath the wall of hard rib. "Well, yeah. More like racing."

"This is how I feel when you're here, Dad," Gohan stated bravely. "And it's how I always feel every time I think about you. It makes me restless, and I have to do something to expend some of that energy you implant right into me just by being within my reach." He grinned deviously and sprung the window ledge.

Understanding that the race was suddenly on, Goku squawked, "Whoa—_hey_—I wasn't ready for that, Gohan!" Slapping a hand over his own mouth, remembering ChiChi, he vaulted after.

* * *

"Fastest!" Gohan stretched out his arms with an affirmative ear-to-ear smirk. He turned to face his father in time to see the proud look on his face.

"Can't be too broken up about it," Goku said gladly. "You may be the fastest in the universe, alright, but I'm still the strongest!"

Gohan cheered for that, though tacitly they both knew the opposite to be true as far as they both knew. Neither said so, however, preferring to bask in the interplay.

They unpeeled their clothes and stormed the amber waters like rabid children. The evening dwindled into a dusky calm. Crickets strummed their legs, and the only sound besides was the clashing of their avid play and whoops of trill shouts. A shadowy haze bleared the jagged line of the piney mountain peaks. Stars spangled the cosmic mere, and the pock-marked moon surmounted all at its zenith.

At length they both sprung free of the waters and crashed into the ground, breathing in the pure and clean air tiredly. Goku shut his eyes contented, and Gohan turned to gaze with a cheery flush mottling his moon-whitened skin.

His father sure was handsome. He always had thought so, and always thought him to be the strongest and kindest man in existence. The profile of him seemed so at peace, and the half-smile donned on his face made his skin glow. Or was it the halo—or the effect of the moon—that seemed to make him appear so ethereal and godlike? Transfixed nonetheless, Gohan watched, while listening to the nocturnal life swell around them. Droplets of river water adorned his father's flesh like dew on glossed leaves, soaking through the hair on his head, and through the dark thatch between his legs. The moonshine made the micro-orblets glisten pale atop his skin, sluicing into the notches and ripples of his musculature in bright outlines of shine. Inching closer, Gohan couldn't help but stare long at the Saiyan strewn out beside him. Then he glanced downward at his father's immodesty. Though he had seen him hundreds of times in the natural, naked, he couldn't help but blush this time for his own deliberate viewing. Neither of them cared for modesty when they were alone together—they had no reason to—but that only made the exploit of his wandering eye bite back that much worse.

Goku lay undisturbed, twitching subtly only as the night's various harmless insects patted their miniature paws upon him.

With his father thusly engrossed in some distant thought—or empty-headedness, which was more likely—Gohan slid nearer upon the bed of crushed grass and carefully wove their fingers together. There was no need for modesty, and right now he simply wanted to be as close to his father as was possible.

Goku's eyes opened at the gesture and gazed over. His heart stammered at the sight of the enlarged eyes looking back.

This was when he would typically smile his usual carefree smile, but he didn't. Something kept Goku sedate and serene despite himself.

"Sleepy already, Gohan?" The mesmeric voice was little more than a whisper. The shrieks of the infinitesimal aphids were far louder than his attempt at speech.

There was an indication of something in his son's expression then—he didn't know what—but Goku wondered about it. Before he could design what the odd look was for, the boy had come close enough to nest within his arm again, as before.

Ear to heart, Gohan listened to the muffled vessels as they transported his father's pure Saiyan blood into every which direction and limb to warm him. And as he listened, the temperate slow thudding gained in speed; the heart organ twitched with innervated movement. Goku was either nervous, or happy, or something else, he didn't know. The heart beat; the blood coursed; the body warmed and felt real. The body heat, the strong rise and fall of the broad chest, and everything about his father, felt so incredibly alive.

Goku's heart was racing now as he stared through the sparse clouds overhead. Skin—warm skin—lay on his own, and in his arms. His strong, shy, and beautiful son. Prickly strands of raven hair tresses curled beneath his nose, threatening to tickle his face into sneezing.

It was nice that he could hold onto his son this way. It had been quite some time. The last recalled moment of their mutual cuddling, and the boy had been ten in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. By the very virtue of Gohan's innate innocence, he retained the unique ability to be well into his teen years and still demand such acts of physical love.

The smaller hand lacing through his own slackened, and so Goku grasped them together himself. Eventually, Gohan fell heavy and limp with unconsciousness.

Everything was perfect. The hammering of Goku's heart never ceased. And he never closed his eyes nor let up the grip on his adorable son's hand.

When the inevitable time came for him to depart again, he hesitated.


	3. Chapter 3 - Burnt Fish

Chapter 3

Burnt Fish

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball, or Dragon Ball Z/GT, nor do I make money off of these FANfictions.

A/N: Fair warning again, this is an incest yaoi [Goku x Gohan].  
Hoping the pace of their coming together is okay.  
If there is any cheesiness or things you don't like that maybe made you roll your eyes, I invite your input and criticism. There's something I'm not too sure about in this chapter myself, but I kept it in, hoping against hope that it passed as effective.  
Enjoy, enjoy.

* * *

Gohan's studies suffered noticeably. Lack of sleep dulled his sharp mind until he could no longer focus on anything but the thought of his dad. A fortnight had passed and Goku came to him dutifully, only missing one night due to the overly excessive circumspections of King Kai. The night thereafter, having thought that Goku's realm-hopping had been discovered in Otherworld, Gohan clung with overzealous relief. Goku lifted his son's face by the chin and pinched him on the cheek until he laughed.

Every night, it was their wont to shell up against each other beneath the blanket of stars, talking about the littlest of things, bantering on about nothing that could be considered very serious.

At his desk, Gohan smiled with a heavy glaze in his eyes, recalling to mind the loving smile his huddling earned him each night.

A stick struck the paper before him. Gohan flew backward in his chair.

"Earth to Gohan!" The tutor grumbled with an irate flourish of the stick. "Your attitude lately has become tiresome." He paced the room. "It's as if no one's up there in that vacant mind of yours any longer. Have the worms gotten to you?" He alluded to a certain cranial-infesting larvae that they had recently studied for its peculiar biological components. "I _require_ an explanation immediately."

With a frown, Gohan considered the truth, but figured better. "Guess I just miss my dad so much, is all," he half-yielded.

"Enough." The remark was terse and acidic.

Gohan leered at the tutor with a look of dry offense. "What do you mean 'enough'?"

The tutor exhaled in exasperation. "Gohan, it's been over _four_ years. You cannot continue blaming your abiding insolence on the outdated excuse of your father's death. Tragic as it is, it's _long_ past."

Marveling at the man's cold gall, he protested. "That's not what I was doing at all!"

"It is." He eyed the boy and continued without a hint of contrition, "If it doesn't stop on the instant, I will be forced to fail you."

"That's not fair!" Gohan cried. No matter how disconcerted he had become with his studies, he was doing no worse than the average adult student his same level.

"Consider it a charity that I haven't already. Consider the questions lain out before you on the desk as we speak! These _are_ things you know, so why can't you answer them? It's as if you've forgotten everything we've gone through. We've reviewed the subjects periodically, constantly throughout the year. You were my star pupil, until now, Gohan. _Now, _you're about as common as the rest of them."

Gohan grit his teeth, speechless.

"Continue studying while I'm gone, or don't. I'm sure you'll be sooner suited to the latter. Whatever you do, it's your own decision to make." A thought came to him just as he was headed toward the door. "I don't think your mother will be too fond of hearing that her son has allowed his mind to deteriorate." He grimaced sidelong at the youth from the other side of the threshold. "You know what she'll think about that," he said with a hint of cruel derision. "She'll think that you'll never gain entry into a half-decent university with an aptitude this badly thwarted. You and I both know it will kill her to begin thinking that way again. And all this trouble _because_ of your dead father. Ironic. Some man he must be, if he can destroy the foundations of your life from the grave." With that, he was gone.

Gohan slunk into a bleak silence.

The last statement had bit like ice right into his chest, reechoing vibrant into the deepest parts of his seething Saiyan blood. Outrage flooded the veins until he was shivering with distended anger; but he withheld from letting the energy manifest. There was nothing he could say or do to retaliate.

Instead, tears flowed from his eyes, and Gohan cursed himself for it. Why did he always cry whenever something scuffed his heart?—Unlike his father who never. Goku had sobbed on the rare occasion, in such moments as when Frieza sent Krillin into the air with an implosion. but even in those instances he had never witnessed any actual tears being shed from his father's eyes—just the frightening sound of heaving gasps. _Dry tears_. And in the emotional upheaval affected in Goku then, he was transformed.

The fear he felt for his father then likened somewhat to the fear that he felt now.

If ChiChi was informed of his faltering academics in the tutor's own words, she'd surely blame Goku even in his gravely absence. Even if she came to learn that Goku was not entirely absent in his life anymore, somehow even that fact would make it all Goku's fault. To her, everything always was Goku's fault. Without a doubt Gohan loved and respected her decisions, but sometimes he simply couldn't stand her inability to clearly assess the situation from a selfless point-of-view.

His dad was the most important thing to him now. Beyond studies, or Mom, or Goten, he needed his dad desperately. And the feel of his arm flexed around him; the dead heart beating, breathing, living.

He smiled, lost in reverie. The print on the paper was little more than a focal point as he daydreamed. None of the questions made a jot of sense to him anymore.

* * *

At dinner he was abstracted—the usual of nowadays. But after a few minutes of comfortable quiet, he asked ChiChi, "Mom?" She regarded him. "What if Dad came back?"

"Unfortunately, he can't dear," she said in her most maternal tones, while scooping snow peas onto Goten's plate. Gohan's little brother stared saucer-eyed at Gohan for the daring mention of their father at dinner time. The Ox King tensed noticeably as well.

It was a copout reply, Gohan concluded. He already knew Goku couldn't—or _wouldn't_—come back, and her patronizing reply only struck an already strained nerve. "But what _if_ he did?" Idly, he stirred the portioned food on his plate into a colorful mixture of meat, rice, and vegetables.

Pausing mid-scoop, she hummed. "I would be very happy, dear," she said simply.

Too simply for his liking.

Gohan stared, stunned over the lack of the usual love-gush. Normally, she would have swooned at the idea, chattered interminably, and wafted her arms romantically into the air like a free bird. Her response had been nothing like he had expected.

"Daddy!" Goten sang, waving a silver spoon above his head. "Daddy, Daddy! Haha!"

Relieved at the noisy distraction, Gohan smiled and laughed at his brother as he twisted in the bolstered seat while Grandpa tickled him. Goten would be overjoyed to meet their father. And without his little brother having even been pried with the question, he showed genuine delight at the prospect without much due effort.

Why Dad didn't want to meet his younger son, Gohan didn't know—until he later guessed the likely truth of it. If Goten met their father, then Goten would likely inadvertently spill the beans to Mom about his nightly excursions with him. Then they'd _all_ be in trouble. Especially Goku. It was the certain way of ChiChi. She would be more angry with her husband's sneaking around than his actually being there.

ChiChi watched her oldest son and sighed worrisomely. He appeared so lonely where he sat, uneating. She was aware that as of late something had drifted him further apart from her and the rest of the family. He just seemed so aloof. Earlier in the day, the tutor had left without warning, and when she had gone to check up on Gohan directly after, she caught him staring blankly into the worksheet set out before him. So poised at his work-desk, a deep red hue had crept up along the teen's cheeks and over eyes. _Must be a girl_, ChiChi had reasoned at the time. Love always isolated a person in a bubble of dissonance. After all, it had for her when she met Goku.

After having hardly eaten a plateful, Gohan left the table. Goten sing-songed his way toward the telly where he joined Grandpa for cartoons. "Nothing violent!" ChiChi called over her shoulder, rounding up the dirty dishes for a hand-scrubbing.

Dad would be there soon, and Gohan had to make certain he was alone when he arrived. When at last Goku came, Gohan sprung from the pillows into invitingly strong arms. "_Daddy_—" He squeezed impossibly tight, unnerving Goku by the sound of his plangence.

"Haha, hey, kiddo!" He ran a fist through the hair, and the boy gaped up at him. "What's up? Nothing wrong, is there?"

"I just—" Goku's encouraging smile made him flush a deep red. "—Just missed you, Dad. I..."

Goku tugged on a spike. Gohan winced. "Why so woebegone? I'll always be here. And even when I'm not, you _know_ I'll be right here." He thrust a knuckle into Gohan's chest. "Right? Now let's get out of here. I smell food. It's making my belly ache! I just might storm the kitchen if we stay any longer." ChiChi's cooking sure was irresistible.

"If you're hungry, how about this time you build a campfire and I cook for us?" He beamed full of grins, but Goku communicated his distaste with a childish pout. "Aw, Dad! I've gotten better since the last time you got stuck with my cooking. Give me a chance, why don't you? I've been watching Mom, you know."

"Well then. Fine, kiddo. At the very least, it'll give us something new to do. And I'm so hungry that I just might eat anything you set out in front of me!"

* * *

Goku built the fire, setting the dried dead sticks he had foraged for ablaze with a stunted ki blast. Gohan dove into the river to catch as many of the plumpest commuting fish as he thought would be suitable for his dad's enormous appetite. Skewering those fish onto sticks, he arranged them around the fire. They sat cross-legged and waited for the cooking to complete itself, talking this time, rather than capering about or wrestling. Goku shared about the Kais and their competitive ganging up on their very own North Kai. And then he told the story of his tournament battle against Pikkon.

"Each Kai is constantly striving to be the one Kai with the undisputed best fighter in all the quadrants of the universe." Goku bellowed like a bell with laughter. "But the funny thing is, they only get that fighter into Otherworld because he _died_ somehow! Yeah. I still don't know if I would have been able to beat Pikkon then without the tournament rules that were set in place; but _even_ then, we both were disqualified for placing our feet on the roof above the arena. Who would have thought!"

"Aw, Dad." Gohan tilted his head in the cupping of his hands, elbows pressed into his knees. "I'm sure even if the battle had been to the death, you would have found a way to win it all, no problem. There's nothing you can't do."

"Except that we're already dead. A death-match would be hard to pull off under those circumstances! But I guess a knock-out would count as such."

"You would." His eyes sparkled worshipfully.

"Well," Goku extended his feet toward the fire. "Winning the battle always initially depends on if whether or not you believe you can do it to begin with. You remember your fight against Cell?—you were losing until you started to believe that you could do it." And that had been all thanks to Goku. "Always remember that, Gohan. It's the most precious of lessons that you could ever receive in your training."

"Right, Dad."

Goku snickered. "Just don't become arrogant like Vegeta. What a set up."

The conversation died comfortably away. Gohan prodded one of the fish with an extra stick, then dropped it as a tiny horned lizard emerged into the orange circular glow of the fire. It scuttled across from the opposite way, clawing up one of the skewers, and opened its mouth hungrily. But the little amphibian was too short.

Unsticking a skewer from the ground, Gohan carefully extended the fish-end toward the grumbly critter. It scurried over with happily hungry eyes. In one munch, it made off with the half-raw meal, leaving a trail of slash marks in the dirt where its claws had scrambled.

Goku watched his son's show of kindness without a territorial complaint.

"Why won't you come back?" Gohan asked straightforwardly, sitting back down again. "Seriously, Dad. Is it really so much better there on the other side?"

"It's as I said before. The earth is safer this way."

"Bull."

Goku nudged him in reproach. "And, no, it's not better than here. I enjoy Otherworld, but I honestly would prefer to be here with my sons."

Scooting nearer, Gohan slouched and stared at the granules on the ground. "When Goten's old enough to keep his big mouth shut, will you meet him then?" Regarding his father, expectant of an affirmative answer, his cheeks went suddenly hot. Perhaps they were too close to the fire, but his dad seemed unphased by it.

"I'd like that, Gohan."

Forgotten, the finished fish began to char.

"Hey, son, come over here." Goku dragged the demi-Saiyan against his chest and held him there. Gohan didn't move, confused by the suddenness of the embrace; even more confused by the quick skipping in his own chest. Large hands cupped through his hair, gentle as a chary giant's. "How's your mother been doing," Goku whispered near his ear.

Goku had not asked about her once after all these nights until now. "Fine, Daddy."

"Are you taking care of her?"

"Yes, sir." His voice cracked.

"And your studies, Gohan?"

Another subject Goku had avoided until then. He gulped. "Wonderfully," he fibbed. "You know me, Dad. Straight A's and all."

"That's my little bookworm."

He blushed hotter than ever and snuggled in, shoving so far into the Saiyan that he imagined he might slip right through the specter out onto the other side. Goku gave no sign of intending to let him go—and the fish burned. Fisting the orange gi with whitened knuckles, Gohan jerked upright in a blind fury and roughly kissed Goku's cheek—then opened his eyes as he felt moisture catch against his lips.  
Impossible.  
Tighter, he squeezed. "Daddy," he murmured at his neck, nudging affectionately against the side of his face. He stifled his own stirred emotion as best he could. There was a tension in his own chest that he couldn't interpret, but it felt like near panic. Some strange, indefinable need.

One had escaped. Only one. The tiniest of bright teardrops wept down the one side of Goku's face, and nothing more. Gohan's lips had fallen against that very same cheek and pressed roughly—yet so softly. And the tear was on his son's warm mouth as it twitched reactively. The lips brushed down his skin in a way that made him shudder; warm air escaped the boy's lips in restrained gasps, heating Goku's flesh in a way that nearly made him groan. How odd. Goku froze with the overlapping rapture of sensations that came over him then, hit all at once by a train-wreck of unfamiliar feeling. The lone little tear hadn't been for sadness, but was rather for his heartfelt joy in having successfully procured the company of his beloved son for this long—and it would be this way eternally. If everything in the world was broken, his love and bond with Gohan could never be.

Blackened and blistering, the fish crumbled in a wind-drift of cinder and ash.

Gohan's mouth grazed Goku's cheek as he lowered it from the kiss he had just given him. His father trembled noticeably at the fond feel of it. _Kiss him again_, he told himself. _Just one more time._ And he did, holding his lips against the warm cheek for as long as his foreshortened breath could hold.

All the while, Goku did nothing.

This was unusual. He couldn't help but wonder at what he himself was doing, smiling for the vibrations he felt quaking through his father's body then. An intangible voice called for him to do something _more_—something much, much more. But he didn't know what. Maybe, just maybe, he could kiss his father's—

"Gohan."

He shook himself out of the haze of errant thought, then blushed hot. What in the world had he just been thinking?

"I'm sorry, Gohan."

"Sorry for what, Dad!" he burst out automatically. "You've done nothing wrong. Nothing's your fault."

"It's alright." Goku's whole body tingled pleasantly with the ghost-feel of his son's mouth on his skin; the resultant smile therefore couldn't be controlled. "I know it's my fault, this whole mess; there's no getting around it." Goku loosed his grip-hold, sighing as a whole slew of strained feelings melted off.

Gohan readjusted himself so that he could take in the side-view of his father's face. He watched the thin meander of the wet stain, where he had kissed, as it dried but still shined in the firelight. It was strange; his father never cried, and had never shed a tear before. Yet, there it was. He licked the salt on his own lips, shut his eyes, and savored the memory of the skin that had just been pressed there. "Even if anything is your fault, I don't care." Opening his eyes again, he wiped the back of a hand over the brightness on his dad's cheek. "I love you, Daddy, and I don't care about anything that's happened thus far. Remember you told me to never have any regrets for what's already been done?" He gave a stern look. "I have none. You told me everything happens for a reason, whether I see it or not. And after it all—after _all _of it, this whole mess—it just so turns out that I love you even more now than I ever did before." He took Goku's arms and forced them around himself again; he fell headlong into the broad chest and smothered his face into the gi. "And even more right now."

Goku smiled. "Then you know how it feels."

He sniffled, little sparks of happiness combusting in his belly. Deep within, the demi-Saiyan understood the inordinate affection he was feeling at that moment. Quickly, it was overreaching the proper limits of the familial mold, reshaping into something he imagined could only be more beautiful than what it already was. There was little he could do to prevent it. Though it were wrong, it couldn't be helped, this falling in love with his own father.

At the very least, he knew nothing would ever result of this odd turn of his feelings. Goku would never requite. Besides, he belonged wedfully to ChiChi, his mother—which accounted for everything, did it not? Gohan ached at the very thought, though, of his own heart being in combat against his own mother. And he wondered how his heart had come to this abnormally amorous conclusion in the first place. He had recognized its beginnings just before the Cell Games, the approximate time in which his prepubescence slowly began to give way to the oncoming of his manhood.

At present though, he was far beyond those innocent and subtle beginnings of sexual maturation. Gohan desired now in ways he never dreamed of desiring another. This strain of affection was only intensified by his own body's urgent need to be combined with another's.

"Strongest man in the world," Goku said, breaking Gohan out of dreary abstraction. "Reduced to a rivulet by his dearest son." The feeling was rare, but Goku welcomed it regardless. It wasn't just anyone who could evoke such strong emotions from him.

"It's not like I did anything to make you cry, Dad. You're just too soft," he teased, still full of sniffles. "Not Saiyan enough, if you want my opinion."

"Don't tell me you're under Vegeta's tutelage now."

"What are you going to do about it?" Teeth showed through the wide smirk he donned.

"Oh, is that how it's gonna be?" Arching an eyebrow, Goku tickle-attacked. His son shrieked and wobbled to the ground on his back, struggling hopelessly for breath and freedom.

"Haha! Daddy, stop! Haha!—I can't br—_ah!_"

Goku heard the snapping of a twig not too far away into the brush. Stopping on the instant, Gohan's breathless laughter soon caught up with him. Immediately he searched for the ki source of the sound, groping the air in all directions with his mind, feeling, feeling, feeling... various animals... the Ox King?—and beside him the irregular energy waves of his strident wife, ChiChi.


	4. Chapter 4 - Alien Monster

Chapter 4

Alien Monster

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball, or Dragon Ball Z/GT, nor do I make money off of these FANfictions.

A/N: Fair Warning again, this is an incest yaoi between Goku x Gohan. Tiny warning to those whom it MAY concern, there are some suggestive bits in this chapter about Goku and ChiChi's physical relationship. Some people might not like that mixed into their yaoi (I'm one of them), but it works for the purposes of the story.  
Read, review, criticize, opinionate, praise, constructively bash me, but most importantly enjoy.  
'Till we meet again in the next chapter.

* * *

"Goku?" The voice had a shake in it. "And... Gohan?"

Father and son peered up simultaneously. "Whoa, Mom!"

Goku's face was completely obscured by his son's pummeling hand, but he was at least able to peek out through the splayed fingers in time to see the encroaching pair.

The Ox King darted backward against a tree, fully expectant of the outbursts that tended to come upon his daughter in such times when things didn't go her way.

Gohan was still dressed in his day outfit—clearly indicative of his intention not sleep for the night—Goku in his gi, the both of them covered head-to-toe in brambles from their tussling.

"I thought there was a wildfire," she gasped looking back and forth between the two. "I went to wake up Gohan about it, but he wasn't in his bedroom! Then we come all the way out here to check on what the smoke was, only to discover that it's _you_—!" ChiChi pointed an accusatory finger at Goku, then promptly redirected it over to Gohan "—And _you're_ not in your bed sleeping like you should be! Instead you're out here building dangerous fires and playing with—" she stuttered at the words "—y—y—your dead _father_!?"

After an empty intake of breath, ChiChi collapsed, heels turned up to the clouds.

* * *

By the time ChiChi came to, the fire was long put out and the sticks of fish were dislodged and piled away into an inedible ash heap. Despotic and apoplectic, she demanded for Goku to return home with them.

"But ChiChi," Goku blinked awkwardly. "I think it would be best if I just returned to Otherworld for now. If things gets stickier here than they already are—"

"I don't care if Satan himself is summoning you back right now, Goku!" she shrieked with a horrid gnashing of her teeth. "You and I are going to have a talk, whether you like it or not! Now the two of you _do as I say_ and let's get _going_!"

The dead man complied impotently.

With an aloof frown, ChiChi marshaled them onward like sheep to a slaughterhouse. It was therefore left up to the Ox King to lay out simple inquiries, at which Gohan cooperated half-willingly, feeling entirely to blame for the whole ordeal.

Of course they had been found out. Building a fire in the forest on a clear night had to be the stupidest idea he had ever concocted yet, especially since neither his Mom or Grandpa had even gone to bed by the time it was lit and the smoke plumes rose. The puzzling sight must have scared ChiChi and the Ox King to assume only the worst, and with him having disappeared out of his bedroom, there had been no one left around who could have been able to control the flames.

Gohan estimated their troubles now to be nigh upon domestic disaster. Not to mention that now Goku was in trouble, and who knew if Otherworld would somehow get wind of the transgression.

"Is this why you've been so quiet and sleepy as of late?" the Ox King asked Gohan, sweating profusely at his temples.

The guilt on his face was well viewable in the starry sea of light. "Yes, Grandpa."

The Ox King glanced over at Goku, who looked preoccupied with his own set of internal worries. "How long has this been going on—with Goku visiting you like this?"

"A couple weeks," he said. Then suddenly, the urge to defend his father's actions drove him to say more. "But that's _my_ fault. He came for only one night, and I selfishly asked him to break the rules and stay more. Please guys—let's keep it our secret? No one can know about this, or else he'll get in trouble back in Otherworld."

ChiChi tromped her heels heavily through the scrub, her hot temper over-boiling like a blackened wave of auric energy. "Isn't that just like Goku," she muttered under breath. "Always getting himself in deep, and the rest of us have to pay for whatever it is he's done this time. Darn him! I'm so sick of it! Even when he's dead he haunts me in this way to my own grave!"

Goku sighed, watching her backside with nothing but remorse wrinkling about his face.

He wondered what she would say when they made it back into the house. And then what should he say in return?—Better yet, what _could _he even say at all? The simple question ate at him; and it didn't help matters that he was still empty-bellied as well. _All that burnt fish,_ his mind sidestepped, stomach grumbling. _Arghh! So famished! _Nothing in the world ever detracted him from a mission of food before. Yet he had completely forgotten about it at some point for some reason.

His wife was in such an uproar that she didn't even think to allow him to perform the Instant Transmission in order to get them all indoors at one time. Perhaps her tyrannical troop-marshalling aided in venting her matronly fury.

Right about now, Goku imagined King Kai was in a right panic. That is, if he was even seeing what was transpiring with them on earth after the promise he gave to their total privacy. Whether or not he had noticed, Goku hoped that he was maintaining himself enough to stay vigilant for the watchful eyes of the Powers that policed the universe and searched for those who had broken the rules as he did.

He half-turned in time to see his son staring back, contrite and dove-like, and sweetly wide-eyed. Goku made an effort to smile, then reached a hand to his shoulder as if to bolster his reassurance that much further. His son often became the brunt of his mother's wrath, but he wasn't about to resign to letting Gohan incriminate himself. Once he had ChiChi alone he'd try to explain everything, and then perhaps she would even sympathize.

* * *

Gohan was sent immediately to his bedroom, under strict orders to go directly to sleep on account of his numerous, sleepless nightly rendezvous.

Even though the door was closed between he and his dad, Gohan simmered full of disruptive anxiety and couldn't close his eyes for a single wink. So he stared at the wall and listened, for the voices: the arguments, the explosive anger, and Goku's frantic and inevitable submissions.

When not a peep reached his ears, he figured something more serious was likely in the grips of exchange. ChiChi was hard-hitting. A loud discipliner. But in the uncommon moments in which she became calm and quiet in the expending of her wroth, it was more frightening than any of her emotional detonations. Not that she particularly scared either he or his Dad, but the silent signs underscored the reality of her solemn ire, and she could not be trifled with.

Gohan felt the tension in the house like taut twine in thin air. If he moved at all, it might snap.

The boards beneath his feet felt chill on this summer's night. The wall that he leaned his ear upon felt brittle and hallow. Quiet supervened.

He reached out for Goku's energy signal and could sense him at subdued level still within the house, with ChiChi's ki settled very closely beside him on the sofa in the living space.

* * *

Her anger was gone, leaving behind a residual look that Goku could only describe as purely supplicatory. She whispered to him, "Come back, Goku. Please."

Bewildered, Goku blinked. Her voice was barely loud enough for him to make out, and though he heard her well enough, his eyes blanked out with incomprehension. "Uhm... What was that?"

Fists buried into the nightgown in her lap, the expression she gave took on a more subtle intensity—something he might have thought bordered on desperation. "It worries me how little you see the truth in things, Goku. Sometimes I can hardly believe you have a brain up there at all. Sometimes it seems like you're only made up of just a big, stubborn heart and brutish strength."

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "Sometimes I just don't see things the way everyone else does, ChiChi. You know that. But why on _earth_ should I ever come back? I don't belong here and the earth is safe now with things settled this way. Not to mention you and I—"

"Our son is suffering without you, Goku!" Her eyes glistened up at him. She lowered her voice again, conscious that Gohan might still be up attempting to eavesdrop. "And now you've got him trysting away with you at night, leaving his poor health and mental capabilities to deteriorate. It can't go on like this anymore, Goku. He's so distant with the family, and the tutor has been acting strangely about him. I... I think it might be possible that his grades are declining now, I don't know. I'm _afraid_ to even ask! You _must_ come back, or I fear for what else might happen to him."

"His grades?"—those words had caught him—"on a _decline_? But that's impossible. He just told me not an hour ago that he's doing just as usual."

"He's a teenage boy who worships you like a hero. Of course he's going to lie if it would make you happy."

He hardened up. "Then, I'll simply stop coming, ChiChi. Honestly, I had no idea that it would affect him negatively like this. I didn't consider it as even a possibility—I swear! I thought it would help him, if anything, which was the only reason in the first place why I at all considered—"

She leaned toward him demandingly, her infuriated visage shoved a hairsbreadth away from his own. "I don't _want_ you to never see him again, do you understand? I _want_ you to say that you'll come back."

He stared without a word, too stunned for any kind of reply.

She was so close—clambering up over his lap in the way she always used to—that it induced him into a cold sweat. After a minute of her leaning upon him, he laid forth a thought. "ChiChi, I, uh, hate to bring this up, but you _do_ remember that things aren't too _normal_ between you and I... right?" He blinked at the question, thinking of it as anything but dumb. But she growled even as he was saying it.

"I'm not asking you to come home to be my husband again." She blushed, though it wasn't with love in the least, but for the awkwardness broached by his comment. At once, she became very aware of her slim figure posed provocatively over his own, fists planted into the cushions on either side of his hips, pinning him into place.

The cold sweat he felt turned to ice at this unnerving sight of her. What this position often precluded couldn't be ignored, as far as Goku was concerned. He remembered the same look of her on the last night they had shared just before the Cell Games, as well as many nights throughout the years previous to that. ChiChi always draped herself over his lap in like manner, and pouted her glossed lips while they argued. Eventually then, she would slide her slim fingers over his thighs, over his body, feeling him beneath the fighter's outfit, all while cooing like a kitten in reproductive heat.

The ice transmuted into an unpleasant fire by the alchemy of those evoked memories.

Right now, Goku didn't want to make any more sons with her—and clearly said so.

ChiChi cracked him on the skull with a knuckle. "Oh, how droll of you, Goku!" She fumed red at the ears. "How dare you think such dirty, conceited thoughts!"

Tears pricked at his eyes.

"I'm asking _for our sons, _you big oaf!" ChiChi crossed her arms. "Will you come home and take responsibility for our sons, or not? No more of this heroic idea of yours that by your not being here the world is suddenly safe again."

"But it is!"

"No, it's not, Goku! The strongest man in the world being _alive_ and _well_ is what makes this world a safer one, and _not_ his death. Use that thick brain of yours and think about it for once, will you? If you still have enemies, they'd sooner take out their aggression on _my_ little boys! You have to do this, Goku."

"But, ChiChi—"

"Gohan needs you." She stood her ground firmly in front of him, cutting him off from any more refusal. "My little boy needs his father. And don't you dare forget about this other littler one that you left me all alone with before conveniently escaping off to your grave! Perhaps an alien monster like yourself can grow up without a father figure around, but neither of my boys are anything like you in the least!"

Gohan tensed at the door, hearing her voice clearer as it raised on the insult. The sick feeling it created in his belly was horrendous. Goku was anything but...

The sincerity emboldening her words made him necessarily silent. Goku felt disdainful but wasn't willing to argue with the woman, no matter how much she might ever dare to insult him. Besides, her regret following the impulsive tirade soon became obvious. As obnoxious and unthinking as she might ever prove herself to be, she was still his family and his wife—ChiChi was still a lady, notwithstanding whether or not she ever acted like it. His own Grandpa had always told him to be nice to girls. Even if all the respect he held in reserve for the lady in question was diffused, the injunction of his Grandfather still prevailed upon this moral point.

He said nothing in return, and gave her credit where it was due for the guilt she now displayed for her wildly cruel mouth.

"Go back to Otherworld, and don't come back again," she whispered, with a bald hint of contrition in her voice. "I want you on your best behavior, Goku, for when you return. I'll be damned if they find any excuse not to allow you back onto earth, all for this foolish gambling with your soul." She smiled weakly, almost crying. "If Gohan is worth risking your soul for every night like this, then isn't _this_ opportunity worth so much more than that?"

She paused, seeing a line crease between his eyebrows as he thought on that.

"I just want my son back again, Goku. While we can try to tell him to move on, or explain that he needs to live his own life with or without you, it won't work. It hasn't worked thus far. I don't even care about _us_ anymore... if you don't."

"You're right in how you said it, ChiChi. He's worth everything and more to me."

She smiled. "No more of this sneaking around, you got it? We'll gather the Dragon Balls for Porunga on Namek and wish you back to life." He tried to interject, but she swung out a hand that abruptly silenced him. "When Porunga contacts you, _then _you can make the decision at that time. Until then, you will think about it day and night, and you will think about our two little boys and what's best for them. Not you, not the earth, not you and I, but _them_. If at that time you still say no, then I won't argue anymore. But keep in mind that if you insist on remaining dead, then I must insist that you keep away from Gohan permanently, for his own good. If it means contacting Otherworld somehow in order for them to chain you up down in Hell, then so be it." She turned away with a sharp pivot. "I trust you can show yourself out. Good night, Goku."

He let her go without a word, turning the words over and over again in his own mind.

Before his first night sneaking down to earth, continued separation from his son wouldn't have felt like such a horrible prospect—he had been surviving through it well enough already, albeit with pain. But now the latter option made him quite squeamish—or perhaps he was just hungry.  
He couldn't tell.

Looking toward his son's door, he indeed could feel him stirring like a peeper, pressed to the wall planks, listening hard and worrisomely.

If he left without a word first to Gohan, he would likely blame ChiChi and accuse her wrongly of castigating him until he had yielded to her demands and returned back to Otherworld. Though things weren't quite ideal at their family's foundations, he still knew it was only right to preserve the family ties.

Goku opened the door and stepped swiftly through, joining his son in the dark quiet of his bedroom.

* * *

"Daddy."

"_Shh_." The teen approached. Goku stopped him with a pat on the head. "Hey, kiddo." His son was only a head shorter than him now, but the term _kiddo_ still seemed to suit.

"What happened? Is she really all that mad?"

"Your mother thought of everything, Gohan, that's all." He ruffled the hair, delighted when the boy couldn't help but laugh. "What I'm about to tell you now—don't get angry at her now, you hear?"

"What do you mean?" He wavered back a step. "What did she—?"

"I won't be coming back like this to you anymore, son." Gohan balked, but his father gave him the same smile that always meant everything would be okay. "I'm coming home for good, instead."

Silence.  
And a dropped off whimper.

Gohan's eyes already glowed with the beginnings of newly wrought tears. "R—really?" His voice was little more than a squeaking squelch.

"I can't say no," he murmured cheerily. "With Porunga, I'll be back, and this time I promise I won't argue against it. Then we can have the rest of our lives together. That is what you want, isn't it?"

"It's everything I want!" Gohan cried, trembling as he turned his head downcast. The floor at his feet caught the dripping moisture dribbling down his cheeks. The demi-Saiyan heaved with an effort to breathe. "God, Daddy... Please... please tell me you're not lying."

"Be sure to thank your mother."

"What'd... she say... _hck_... that made you—_hck_—change your mind...?"

"It's not important. But I need you to understand: I can't be skipping realms anymore until I've come back, so I'm going to need you to hang tight for me, alright? Can you do that for me?"

"Yeah," he lied. "S—sure, Dad..."

"Good boy, Gohan." He thought it appropriate about then to embrace his crying boy, and did so. Arms crushed all around him in return and wetness soaked in through the gi. "You continue doing as she says. If she wants you to stay behind while someone else gathers the Dragon Balls, you stay behind, got it? Don't play mutiny for anything. I'll be with you soon enough, in a way that'll be far better than this. No rush, yeah?"

His heart hitched with unruly impatience. "No rush," he mumbled with a mouthful of his orange shirt.

Goku started to release his hold, but Gohan jerked him back into place and whispered, "No—wait. Before you go, Dad, I just wanted to say... that... that I _want_ to be like you." He sniffled. "I've always wanted to be someone as good and great as you are, Daddy... and I'll always strive to be." He trailed off in saying, "You're not what she called you... You're not a monster. You died for my own blind arrogance. That's something a monster would never do."

After a few heartbeats, Goku's arms and hands settled back around Gohan's waist. He braced his son very near, lifting him half-off from the ground.


	5. Chapter 5 - Love Means Food and Fighting

Chapter 5

Love Means Food and Fighting

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball, or Dragon Ball Z/GT, nor do I make money off of these FANfictions.

A/N: Reminding again, this is an incest Goku x Gohan yaoi love story.  
Expect more to be offered in this chapter beyond what's been so far seemingly (somewhat) innocent between the pair. That means a proverbial power-up in the sensual content (and you, dear reader, should rightly expect more for the future).  
This chapter was the hardest to write and edit for some reason, but here we stand.  
I didn't want to write about the Dragon Ball searching or the inevitable reunion. Seemed pointless. How both those scenarios likely played out goes without saying—and so we skip into the more important parts. Any feedback is welcome, and as always, enjoy!  
Until next chapter.

* * *

"Goku."

He sat inattentive on a smooth rock...

"_Ahem_—Goku."

...in deep, deep meditation.

"Goku, are you there?"

Left brow wiggling, he grumbled overtly in a state of mental combat.

"_Goku!_ Wake _up_!"

He soared through the sky, then returned to ground, landing safely on his skull cap. "Geez, King Kai!" Goku shouted through gritted teeth and tears. "You didn't have to scream and yell like that, you know!"

"At least your fall was softened by something hard enough." The blue King chuckled and coughed simultaneously. "I just thought you would like to know... they've summoned Porunga." His antennae swiveled through the airspace in front of him with an electromagnetic throb. "But of course, if you'd rather continue your training here in the afterlife, be my guest. It's no longer _my_ star that you're blowing up to bits anymore."

"No—no. That's great news!" He hopped to his boots, the bulbous bump he sustained from the head-fall throbbing angrily. "Oww... Just, next time, how about being a bit more gentle in getting my attention? You know how deeply the mind wanders when meditating."

"One wouldn't know the difference between your meditation and naps, Goku." King Kai snorted. "Oh! And before you go, do you still remember the promise that you gave to me?"

"Yup! Sure do, King Kai!" He beamed heroically. "Since one of Shenron's wishes was already used to get Bulma, Yamcha, and Krillin onto New Namek, and the last wish was saved, it won't be long until you're brought back to life yourself. Same with your planet. We'll re-gather the Dragon Balls for Shenron again after the 180 days is up so that he can transport us back onto New Namek again. That way we can gather Porunga's Balls for _you_ this time, King Kai."

"Don't you forget!" King Kai blubbered.

"I won't—I won't! Promise!" He smiled. "Now, it's time for me to go. Porunga just contacted me, and you know how impatient these slumbering dragon gods can get!"

"Is it really going to take three whole wishes just to bring you back to life? Can't your friends simply use the other two on me and my planet?"

Doubtful, Goku counted off on his fingers. "_One_ to be wished alive. Then when I Instant Transmission over to their energy signal, Elder Moori is going to wish us all back onto earth for the _second_ wish. In trade for the Namekians' agreeing to assist, Bulma is reserving the third and final wish over to them. We could have used that wish for you in some way, I suppose, but it's only right to thank them and offer _something_ in return. Without their help, none of the wishes could even be granted."

"But that means I'll have to wait even longer before I can get my planet back!" King Kai whined. "If you revive me, Gregory, and Bubbles, that's already all three of Porunga's wishes, Goku! I could really use that last wish now!"

"Oh, I guess you're right." He gawped up at the empty eggshell sky, head devoid of any ideas that could possibly remedy the situation. "I guess you're just going to have to be patient, then. Hey!—But look at it this way. At least you'll be getting everything back eventually, am I right? Oh, there it is—gotta go! See ya: King Kai, Bubbles, Gregory! Wish the other Kais well for me!" He saluted.

"Wait, Goku." King Kai cleared his throat. "Why would you _wish_ to be _teleported_ back to earth? Why not use your Instant Transmission on you and your friends? It would open up a wish for me that way."

"Oh, hey—that's a great idea! Then we can wish your planet back right away with the second wish today! And since Shenron isn't picky about resurrecting only one person at a time, in four months we can wish all three of you back at the same time! Gosh. I don't know why I didn't think of that before myself."

"Maybe it's the bump to your head distracting you from the obvious."

"Alright, alright. I'll make sure to tell them the plan as soon as I get there, King Kai." Goku's halo disappeared, dissolving like firefly glitter from overhead. Then, as he put both fore- and middle-fingers to his forehead and located the ki signal on the green globe of New Namek, his body vanished.

King Kai grimaced through the rims of his teashades. "He better not forget about me in four months. I swear that if he does, I'll kill him again myself! But I suppose the wait could be longer... if every decision were left up to that goof, that is."

* * *

Unhaloed, Goku sat on the floor of the living space with a weeping ball of runty limbs and spiky hair wiggling in his lap. The tiny toddler stuck like a nettle to his garment, and Goku couldn't help but remember Gohan being much the same when he was Goten's age.

When he had first arrived home, ChiChi welcomed him lukewarmly, while their two sons melted before him into tearful twin puddles of goo. Ever since the homely reunion, the littlest one had commandeered all his time, which made Gohan exceedingly jealous, unwilling as he was to share their dad. The fledgling feelings he harbored for his father made him beyond just a little possessive and irate.

ChiChi took notice of his unimproved mood, her son being all the more remote and unfriendly as a result of Goku's return.

She stood beside him as he watched his father and little brother play together from the desk-chair in his bedroom. He couldn't even focus on his studies still, though the tutor hadn't yet had the opportunity to return and follow through with the promised threat of failing him. Everything he needed to learn lay arranged before him, but he simply didn't care. "What's wrong, Gohan?" she asked. "Your father's been home for two days now, and you're still moping about. Have you really met a girl after all? Is that what this is about?"

Goten squeezed Goku's thumbs in his tiny fists, giggling.  
"Gosh, Goten, you're stronger than I thought you'd be! Aww. You make your old man proud! Watch out, Daddy's gonna throw ya—Lift off!"

Gohan turned from the domestically heartwarming sight, ashamed for his own unwarranted temper. "No, Mom," he said. "I'm not interested in any girls."

Goten snatched his father's face and nuzzled noses.

Burying his head underneath a toppling tower of study papers, Gohan grumbled.

"Look at you! You've been acting strange. Something is definitely wrong with you, Gohan." When he relinquished no reply, she followed up in sterner tones: "There _has_ to be something bothering you. Now out with it, mister!"

Goku wiggled his tongue at Goten and guffawed, collapsing to the floor on his back in a boisterous good humor. Gohan peered out between the study sheets at them, feeling a rancid writhe within his bowels.

Everything was wrong.

But if anything, he should have been acting more jealous toward his mother, not his brother. Goten was hardly any sort of real threat to his ambitions; he was only four years old, had never met their father until then, and therefore deserved all the playtime Goku could afford. But still... The unnecessary unpleasance he suffered at the sight of their mutual joy-making struck him like a barge to the head. It couldn't be helped. Unjustifiable as it was, Gohan was angry and felt nothing short of the desire to procure his dad's attention for himself. It was selfish, but the feeling creeping upon him couldn't be ignored. He wanted Goku alone, even if it meant just for eating or training. No amount of family togetherness could ever placate him.

"I haven't been able to have a single moment alone with him is all," he murmured mildly. It stung his own conscience just to articulate the honest thought aloud. It grated on his inability to take reason with himself. He could join in at any time, like any normal brother would. The stupidity of his own inaction rankled. "I'm really glad Goten gets to be with Dad finally, but he _won't_ give me a chance."

"You probably don't remember." ChiChi wagged a shrewd finger through the air. "You were much the same at his age. Worse, probably. Made it hard for the romance between your father and I to endure." She winked suggestively.

Hearing that bothered Gohan more than it mitigated, but he said nothing.

ChiChi smiled a knowing and divisive smile, then left and shut the door to his bedroom with a sashay. Wresting Goten from Goku's arms, she leaned in nose-to-nose with the Saiyan and glowered. "Goku." He blinked in wordless perplexity. "You have another son in _that_ room over there, in case if you've forgotten. I for one suspect that he still misses you. Might I suggest that you check up on him while I take Goten out for some ice cream and a movie?"

"Huh? But... wouldn't you prefer that we all went together as a family instead?" Ice cream sounded good about then.

"Goku!" Her eyes seethed, and he held up his hands as if to placate her. "You're missing the point, as usual." She cradled Goten in her arms as he began to shriek and bawl. "Dad!" she shouted to the very tip top of her lungs. "I said _Dad!_ Get your butt over here, will you? We're taking Goten out for ice cream right _now_!"

The stout Ox King stumbled in and widened his mouth in protest. "But, ChiChi! My favorite TV show is on! I never miss it!"

"Don't argue with me, old man! When I say now, I mean NOW! Now hop to!"

In a sweat, he gave up the battle and waddled out the door after her. "Good thing I always set it to record," he mumbled to himself woefully.

The door slammed with a resounding clap. The racket of crying toddler and screaming wife died away as the Ox King disencapsuled a hover car and compliantly drove them off.

Goku looked toward his son's bedroom. The door was closed.

Of all the high-decibel shouting and battle-cries endured throughout his young life, the demi-Saiyan was still unable to withstand the earsplitting power behind his mother's lungs. Mid-shrill, he'd reburied his head into the cavern of paper sheaves with the defeated intent to eventually study. He glazed into a saddened stupor. Papers glided floorward, circling and rocking useless into an unstudious disorder. He sighed achingly.

Gathering himself up from the wooden floorboards, Goku knocked once then twisted the door handle. "Can I come in?"

Snatching up a book at random, the remaining papers scattered in a frenzy. Gohan swallowed and replied in as normal a voice as he could muster: "Sure. Come in, Dad."

Goku strode in, stepping lightly over the crackling cluster of papers, then draped a companionable arm around Gohan's tense shoulder. Leaning in, his mouth hovered an inch from his son's ear. "Need any help with your homework, kiddo? Maybe it's something I could help you with this time."

Warm breath grazed the shell of his ear, making him shudder. "No, thanks. I think I'm okay."

Gohan froze in his chair as Goku's other arm came around the other side of him. But instead of girding him from behind like he had expected—and subconsciously hoped for—the arm continued to extend forward until Goku had plucked the book free out his immobile hands. Turning it over—right side up—he replaced the leather-bound object back into his son's grip.

Goku smiled. ChiChi had been right. Their son felt neglected, and he couldn't have been more thankful for her intuitive intervention in the matter.

"Ever since I came back to life," he said, "I was no longer able feel you like I could back in Otherworld." With one cheek pressing into the side of his son's face, Goku's voice dragged on, pausing for stretches of uncountable, unendurable seconds in between each and every sentence. "It's as if the whole purpose of that connection that existed between you and I was fulfilled to some desired completion, if you want my opinion. And now that I think about it, while I was dead, it was as if everything was pointing me here back home to you. Regardless of the separations we've been forced to bear, I'm here now—" he girded the petrified youth from behind "—I'll always be here when you need me. I've broken the rules of death to save you from Bojack once before, and then again to be with you. By the same token, Gohan, I'll gladly die repeatedly if it means seeing you through."

The slightest of touches skimmed the edges of his ear, quite by accident. It felt like an electric shock. Goku had turned marginally in a way so that his lips had touched there. Had Gohan not known better, he would have bet it was intentional, but such astray hope was the mere delusion of a deviant.

"Forgive me for having ever left you," he whispered into the ear now—making Gohan shut his eyes at the shocking feel of it. "I love you, Gohan. You'll never know how much."

The teen wondered about how silly he likely appeared just then, frozen stock still as though he were corner-trapped, blue in the face for not breathing, his expression a twisting of ill-coupled horror and need. His body screamed in a way never known to him before, and he dearly wished to cry because of it.

When nothing in his son was forthcoming, Goku's mind jaunted back toward the many-made memories of the two of them concealed by quiet nights, locked in strong shared embraces, his son's soft and pillowed lips placed firm upon his cheek with avid love. With a childlike hum of vermeil pleasure, Goku turned in toward his son on an instinct fueled by the memory. The seam of his mouth split slightly open and the soft flesh of his lips pressed into Gohan's flush face. It was a gesture of reciprocity for the love his son never shied from giving.

With that contact, the horrible knot in Gohan's stomach churned loose. The marauding panic lessened in ferocity, and he squeezed shut his eyes, thrilled at the silken skin being briefly pressed upon him. His dad hummed into it, making his entire young body quake and quicken into unforeseen arousal. Tactile as Goku had always been with him, he had never bestowed any sort of kiss before.

Warm air wafted the one side of his face as his father breathed out. Gohan nearly swooned, drunk on the warming pleasure of it. The newly experienced sensations were sublime. It was the briefest of any good bliss he had ever felt before, but it felt like a good heaping of eternity nonetheless. The kiss could not have been more chaste, either, but the boy's mind imagined differently in its contrarily romantic predilections. It lasted only as long as a cheek-peck could ever last, but Gohan grinned in a superb stupor of ulterior indulgence. The feeling drove him wonderfully mad.

Goku pressed their faces together side-by-side and chuckled. "We're all alone here together, you know." Gohan's gut clenched reactively on the unexpected announcement. "And I know you don't _really_ want to study. What would you like to do instead?"

Slitting open his eyes, Gohan licked his lips at the sumptuous ideas springing into mind. But before the sensual daze had a clear chance to usurp his waning willpower, he had successfully resisted the urge to beg on behalf of his wanton desires. Instead, he said, "Anything, Daddy. I don't care. Just as long as it's only you and me."

On an impulse, he wondered if Goku was ever romantic like this with ChiChi. In Gohan's own case, however, he knew it to only be a simplistic delusion. Besides, his dad was decidedly unromantic by definition, and could only be described as a combat-inebriate. What love was to him meant only food and fighting.

The haze of lust lifted at an inspired idea. "Dad, let's spar."

Goku's nose propped into the prickly tresses of his son's dark spikes. "That would be great. I couldn't help but notice that you haven't trained at all since I've been home. Have you been training within the past four years?"

"No," he admitted ruefully. "Mom says that it would only make me into a muscle-heavy thug."

Goku pulled free. "That's the one thing about her," he blurted thoughtlessly in an evident disappointment. She hated the one thing that he wholeheartedly loved. Gohan, on the other hand, would never deny him the pleasure of his fighting passion. The pair dressed down into their gis and wrestled on the way outdoors. For hours they exchanged blows, sharp tongues, and chafing insults, stopping only as ChiChi summoned them in for dinner.

* * *

The old routine of the house was fast restored. Large meals and study time came hand-in-hand with battle training and invigorating hikes. Goku and Goten bonded, but only in the scarce hours that Gohan wasn't hogging him all. With two sons to tend to, and neither being very willing to share or split the playtime hour allotments, Goku found himself soon over-occupied with digging in the dirt, catching bugs, building Legos, razing said Legos, and helping ineffectually with university-level homework. Occasionally, Goku would wake Gohan up and the two would slip free of their beds under the calming cover of night. They'd fly away and play, and star gaze until neither could keep open their eyes.

Months passed. The winter season came and went. Snow drifts gave way to the green beauty of newborn springtime. Shenron was summoned a final time and King Kai, Bubbles, and Gregory were all brought back to life in one composite wish.

Goku was ousted from the bedroom at night by ChiChi on occasion. Forced to take lodgings in the main room, Goku built up a piling of hoarded blankets and pillows on the floor along the foot of the couch.

On one of these lonely nights, Gohan emerged from his bedroom to appease a call of nature. Hearing the snoring of his father in the main room, he slunk around the furnishings, then spotted the Saiyan in unconscious splayed repose.

First, he crept away to relieve himself of the pressure building in his bladder, then promptly returned to where his lonesome father slept. The demi-Saiyan lingered at the hem of the makeshift bed, uncertain and trepid. Dismissing the self-directed misgivings of his scruples, Gohan dropped into the blankets beside the slumbering man. He waited solemnly for Goku to rouse at his presence, the pulse beat in his heart doubling in speed. "Daddy?" he whispered testingly.

No response. The man was out cold and impossible to wake.

Reassured with that, Gohan curled in against him and rearranged the other's arms, as well as the blanket, so that they fit comfortably around him. The moment his head came to rest on his father's rising chest, he dropped off into void and sleep. When dawn arrived, Goku woke to the snuggled up youth and smiled.

* * *

A party was thrown for Gohan's sixteenth birthday. Goku watched on with amusement as the grown boy tried and tried to blow out the customary number of tricksy candlesticks, only to blink his eyes on each failed attempt. The rigged candlesticks had been his own idea, after having seen an advertisement by chance on the television set as the Ox King browsed through channels. "Give it one good long breath, Gohan!" he japed with a loud whoop.

"Lemme try, lemme try!" Goten wailed.

"Well, what do you know?" Krillin cried with laughter. "The Saiyan that brought about the destruction of the universe's most dangerous villain, unable to blow out candlesticks!"

Leaning forward on his elbows against the backing of a chair, Goku watched with mirthful wide eyes. His boy jumped back once more as all sixteen wicks relit. Eventually he would catch on and read the guilt riddled ostensibly in his dad's jesting smirk, but for now he puzzled about it. Everyone clapped and laughed. Goku received a few conspiratorial pats on the back by Krillin and Yamcha while his son prepped for another go. He stared, completely unaware of anyone's touch or privy comment.

Gohan was no longer a little child anymore. His voice was hardly altered from the way it used to be—deep, yet still husky with the change—but the boy himself was grown. Though he still needed to fill out into full height, Goku knew that whom he was beholding now was one handsome and brilliant-minded young man. Gohan's smile allured, and his adorably large eyes captivated. His personality was unflaking and became all the more lovely and glib as each day elapsed.

He gazed long and unspeaking—the only silent guest in the midst of the whole boisterous birthday crowd—pondering on the undeniable fact that his son was very beautiful, and he could think of nothing else. When Gohan's eyes met his own from across the enthronged way, his heart sputtered for a moment. The candles had relit once more, and the expression on the boy's giddy face was accusatory. "Daddy!" he cried with flighty grins. "_You_ come and try it for me!"

* * *

"I don't know why Mom thinks I should cut my hair short," Gohan groused. The party had long died down, and the two had taken off. "She says I'm outgrowing the length that it is now." He imitated her motherly nagging as best as he could: "_It's too young a look for you, Gohan. You look like a punk! A hooligan!_"

"Don't let it get to you. I think it's fine the way it is." Then, with a chuckle: "Did you know that she wants to cut Goten's hair, as well?"

"No way!" He tensed. "He'd look like a frog if she did."

"My thoughts exactly!" Goku assumed a blank face. "_Ribbet_."

Gohan swung bodily around, walking backwards in front of Goku. "Ah, well. I can only hope to one day be as handsome as you are, Dad, regardless of the do." He looked askance and grinned sharp around the edges.

Goku laughed. "What a funny thing to wish for."

"How's it funny?" He turned away from the Saiyan's probing eyes as they fastened upon him.

"Well, darn, Gohan." The teen gulped, feeling unnecessarily panicked at that. "You really think you're not that handsome?" Goku tried to keep the next statement from sounding so strange, but: "You're gorgeous!" His son's step wavered.

"Dad, shut up." Halting in place, Gohan groaned. "As a parent, you saying so doesn't count at all." Inwardly, though, he appreciated the compliment. "Since when were you the sort to spout a lie like that, anyhow?"

"Since never." His smile was teasing. "_Gorgeous_."

"Well, I don't know whether to take you seriously, or not." He kicked a rock and turned bashfully away. "All I know is how wonderful you are. That's all that I meant."

Goku swung an arm over his son's head and dragged the boy near, planting a kiss into his overgrown hair. "Who's the one that's lying now?" He watched curiously as his son ripped himself free from the headlock.

They walked on in a gray silence.

Stealing covert glimpses while they strolled abreast, the teen scrutinized his father, every inch that was in sight, especially the grinning eyes. His cheeks pinked with the thoughts that waylayed him. He turned shamefully away.

When Gohan was little, he had been able to stare at his father and think, _how beautiful,_ without feeling so bad. Now, however, he couldn't think the same without identifying the guilty, errant affection it attested to. Ever since he had turned eleven years old, his hormones sparked into rapid, rabid firestorms at random. But especially now that his father had returned, the fire persisted to burn with a constant sustained blaze; albeit in low grade, it burned him nonetheless. He couldn't help but admire and desire his dad in ways he cognitively knew he should rather not. But the love in his heart felt very right, if not the lustful thoughts he indulged himself in. The thoughts would invade his fantasies, unmerciful in their potency, tightening into the very seams of his trouser pants. When he lay in Goku's arms, the claimant to more physical displays of love than was typical for the average boy his age, he experienced a sort of pleasure no parental figure could normally—or appropriately—ever provide for their child. It was possible that there was something very wrong with him indeed, something extremely detrimental, he suspected. He might very well be some rare and isolate brand of pervert, which he feared. But if he was seriously in love, was the 'perversity' of the attraction solely of his own mind's making? If he was truly in love, could that alone be enough to make it right?

Goku looked inquisitively at his son, who swiftly averted his attention elsewhere.


	6. Chapter 6 - Seize the Last Bite

Chapter 6

Seize The Last Bite

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball, or Dragon Ball Z/GT, nor do I make money off of these FANfictions.

A/N: Happy-rant time! New Goku x Gohan book-cover for the story, but it is cropped for better viewability. If you want to view the full image, I have my DeviantArt linked on my Profile. Find it there. (Just assuming that that would interest the readers of this story.)  
For the chapter itself: sexual content alert.  
By the way, (trying hard not to spoil the chapter content) in reference to the idea about the full moon and what it effects in the _tailless_ Saiyans, it was an idea I adopted from some yaoi doujinshi artists. I thought it was brilliant, and so the credit with that goes out to them. I simply approached that plot device a bit differently. I thought it created even more of a sympathetic link between Goku and Gohan. -shrug- Tell me what you think!  
Chapter 5 ended in the pair walking around outside, and I just want to make it clear that Chapter 6 is not continuing from there. It's a new evening after Gohan's birthday.  
Review, criticize, smash this chapter to bits, fap, laugh, and cry, but most importantly enjoy!

'Till next chapter.

* * *

"We have to find a new place to hole up in." Gohan shaded his eyes from the sun, looking long against the evening glow on the horizon. "For when we want to be alone, that is. We still haven't found a new place to hang out in after all these months. Remember, Mom knows where it is we go now?"

"Oh, yeah." Goku rubbed at a fresh bump on his head and winced delicately. "That wasn't the smartest idea we've ever had, that's for sure."

"We've been pretty careless in our sneaking off ever since." He looked at his dad and frowned. "Aw, Daddy. You really should know better by now than to steal food from the counter while she's cooking."

"That frying pan must be made of the hardest metal," Goku whined. "It's not even as if one little pre-game bite could ever affect how much I eat at the table!"

"Well, I agree with you there." He grinned and reached out to rub the bump. "There's no room for _leftovers_ in your vocabulary."

"Hey! Hands off, Gohan—_ow-e-youch_! That _hurts_—it's_ sensitive_!"

"What a big baby," he teased, then let go. "Come on. I think there's a glen over in that direction. Follow me, Dad." Lifting off, Gohan flew, with Goku close at his heels. "I don't want Goten to learn about this place, either, if that's alright with you. Let's just keep it between you and me, how 'bout it?" He looked back and Goku raised an affirmative thumb.

"Our secret."

The glen had a smooth, clear stream nestled into a green swaddle of mossy trees and heaps of boulders. Swallows sounded the alarm on their approach, and fauna chittered on the way back toward their hiding hovels. A rivulet trickled down a tower of declining levels of layered sediment in foamy white arches, streaming into the mouth of a greenish pond where geese honked and dunked their beaks beneath the sheen surface.

They both marveled. "Wow, Gohan, this is perfect. It might even be better than the last place we fished in. Can't believe we've never discovered this spot before."

"It sure it beautiful." Gohan leaned over the grass hem and peered into the waters. Like a mirror it shined back up at him, concealing the habitation and swimming life-forms that fanned fins from within. He considered the reflection of himself, twisting and working the fussy line of his mouth around in circles. "There won't be any big fish around here, I don't think. Just little teeny, tiny ones, minnow-sized. If we're looking for the big game, we'll have to go back to our old spot."

Goku pat his belly. "Only the big fish can sate."

"Ain't that the truth."

"Well, then. Solution! We can hunt back in our old place and drag them back here, if we so happen to want to soak in all this beautiful nature. How about it?"

It was a good plan. Gohan nodded.

After exploring the area, familiarizing themselves with every little splay of leaf, tree bough, and ant hill, they raced each other home in full flight. They ate dinner, bathed, and, after the sun had long gone down, crashed into their beds. But they both lay wide awake, restless as kids on a sugar hype.

Goku no longer shared the bed with ChiChi, and though they still shared the same cramped bedroom, it was easier now to make a break from it to somewhere less awkward and discomfiting when he wished.

The full moon cast its vast beam into Gohan's bedroom like an alien glow. And soon the sensation would come: a creeping heat ventilating through his body, like a great warm wave of ocean tides arisen by the moon's pull.

His fingers twitched and—Gohan bolt upright in a sudden sweat, biting back gruff moans. There it was. And it was terribly unbearable.

Ever since his tail had been removed as a child, he no longer morphed into the Great Ape by the gloam rays of the full moon. But increasingly now, over the past few years, new seizures had come upon him, beast-like in their own right. Restive, he'd heat up like a torch as though he were being immersed in molten granite. The need for release would possess him like a wanton demon taking its lodging within the center-pit of his body, a podgy demon that subsisted solely off of the monthly fulfillment of his recurrent lust. It wheedled and pricked his young senses until it was sated and staved, until the coming of next month's full moon.

Problem was, though he obliged himself on such nights—neither wishing to suffer through it, or use another person to itch the urge away—it left him feeling strangely dissatisfied in the wake of the first climax. And so the self-service would continue long into the night, until the merciful dawning of the next day's morning sun. Persistently hungry for better, he knew anyone but himself would likely suffice, but Gohan had no options. He had no lover to speak of, and would never give his chastity away for the fulfillment of the full moon's evil influence. Nor would he rob another's body without due consent, or love for that matter. But imagination did indeed aid him in his crusade to self-satisfy. As of late, the person whose face and body he envisioned when taking sweet care of himself—the name he groaned through grit teeth as his mongrel seed spilled—was only Goku's.

He felt filthy just thinking about it. And yet, it wasn't as if he could snuff out the conflagrations of sexual fantasy all on his own. As spontaneous and violent as they were on the onset, he could only wallow in them like a writhing piglet, purring through the wet puddle of his own passion. The deep-felt hunger for his father's body and love could only be temporarily appeased in such a way.

Gohan slid a hand downward, pushing past the waistband of his trousers, hearing the guilt in his brain scream in protest as he let the chains of imagination loose like a wildfire. The sheer white strength of the commencing fantasy of his father overwhelmed him with euphoric feeling, and he moaned, completely powerless to resist the scenes that he invented for his own delight. He took a firm hold of himself and imagined... pretended that it were real... picturing his Daddy there with him. Running the fingers of his other free hand over his chest, down his abdomen, and lower still... he pretended that his own hands belonged to Goku. Gohan licked his lips and softly moaned, squeezing the tightened foreskin up his cock.

Before he had slipped too far into the taboo delicacy, he heard a rustle just beyond the window, spooking him out of the erotic daze. A pebble lobbed through the open window and stuck itself into the very center of his forehead pointedly. Then sounded a conspiratorial hiss: "_Psst! Gohan!_"

Removing his hand from the swelter of his hard-on, Gohan griped. "Shit, Dad! You hit me!"

Spikes emerged above the window sill, followed by wide quirksome eyes. "Race ya!" Then the spikes disappeared.

Gohan could hardly believe the nerve. Launching himself up out of bed, ignoring the angry throb of his arousal, Gohan sailed the sill and raced with all his might focused in toe and heel.

_One day I'll beat you_, his father had vied so long ago.

_Not_ _even on a good day, Dad. _He huffed. _Not even with a head-start like this, you old man._

Loose pajama clothing billowed around their swift limbs. The darkness of the overcast clouds made foot-placement unchancy, but there was just enough light out for them to make out the worst of the obstacles. Even if they nearly fell with wrong placement, all it took was one little kick off of ki in the base of their foot, and their stumbling took on a driving-force.

In only the passing of a few seconds, Gohan was a few feet behind and gaining speed. The glen was nearby and neither had quite yet broke out into a sweat.

Maybe the exertions would help retrain Gohan's delinquent mind onto something more suitable. Maybe play and some rough-handling action was all that he needed to expend the excess energy. Perhaps Goku could bring all his unpredictable wanting back under reigns for the night. Perhaps.

He stopped in the center of the glen, sensing Goku far behind. Gohan turned and waited, quite confused. He always only ever won by a microsecond margin, so he couldn't understand why his dad was still lagging several whole seconds behind.

Swatting a hand to Gohan's shoulder from behind, Goku bent over his ear. "I said it before, but really. Where _did_ that burst of sudden speed come from? You turned into a blur and them, _bam_, you were gone!" Goku wiggled his fingers into the air to accentuate the sound's impression. "Quicker than lightening, or _any_thing for that matter!"

"I don't know," Gohan said. He couldn't believe for a moment that he had just won the race without it being forfeited over deliberately. More likely was that it was just another one of his father's white lies.

* * *

"I hope I didn't wake you," Goku said.

They lay in the grass together, hands wedged beneath their necks, watching the gauze of gray clouds as they shape-shifted the discus of the moon, and caught like cobwebs tacked into place by the nail-heads of the stars.

"Not at all," Gohan said. "In fact, I couldn't sleep a wink."

"Yeah, me neither."

With that, Gohan wondered if his father was experiencing the same physical urges as himself. The moon didn't even need to be within his own sight to effect the carnal craving. Regardless of where it was he hid, the moon sought his blood like a magnetic agent through all matter and mass: through closed curtains, steel, thick earth, and the deepest of dream sleep.

"Dad?" he said meekly.

"Yeah, son?"

"The moon—" Much to his dismay, a shuddered gasp slipped harshly out of his lips as an arousing seizure struck. Removing the hands from his head, he let his palms face down into the moist earth at his sides.

"What a view of it," Goku said agreeably.

"No. What I mean is—" His voice caught on a hard, icy lump. A whine reverberated behind his closed lips, making him fuss more into a fluster. "What I mean—is—"

"I feel it, too," Goku admitted matter-of-factly. "An extreme turn on. Am I right?"

Gohan blushed. "Yeah. I suppose that's it." He wondered how Goku was feeling it at the exact moment; if whether or not he wanted sex, or if he had already taken care of that urgent part of the problem with ChiChi, or with himself.

"It's normal for our kind." His voice was soothing. "Don't be embarrassed by it. In fact, I knew you were feeling the same restlessness, which is why I decided to bring you out here with me in the first place."

"It sure beats suffering alone in my bedroom all night for sleepless hours."

"I'd hope so," he laughed. "And we both understand it, so there's no harm, and nothing to be ashamed of."

"None whatsoever, Dad." A thick clot of galactic glitter caught the attention of his eye. "Still, though... it burns. It would be nice if there was a way—" _to make it stop_, he almost said, but then remembered who he was with_._

After a brief silence Goku turned on his side with wide eyes and chuckled. "But there is a way." A brow raised up, suggestive. "You do know what it is, don't you Gohan?"

He swallowed dryly. "Of course I know," he mumbled. "Having sex."

"Well, duh. But don't you know what else you can do on your own?"

"Ew, Dad."

"_Ew?_" Goku laughed. "Are you surprised to find out that your old man does it after all?"

"No." But his palms sweat with the gratuitous information.

"Don't be so shy." He frowned. "It's only normal."

"What's _normal_ is keeping that sort of thing to yourself out of decency," Gohan snapped.

Tilting his cheek into the grass, Goku hummed thoughtfully. "Well... you do it, too."

"But—it's none of your—_business!_" Gohan sat straight up and threw the nearest clod of dirt at him.

"Geez! That smarts! You're the first person I know to freak out over this type of conversation like that! What's wrong with you?"

"Did you say _the_ _first_?" Gohan reviled what that implied, and made a jealous face.

"Calm down, will you? Just because I've talked about it with others doesn't mean that I've done anything with anyone else besides your mother."

A dry harrumph. "Of course, Dad. You'd _never_ cheat on her."

"There's nothing wrong with just talking about it, is there?" He rubbed at the sore bruise on his shoulder where the clod had hit.

"Sorry," he said, calming down. And he really was. "You just sort of... caught me off guard with it, is all. I never expected something like that to come from you, Dad." It was half the truth at least. While half of him was shocked at the nonchalance of his broaching up the forbidding subject, the other half was simply swimming in excitement.

"Don't be sorry," Goku said with a conciliatory look about his eyes. "You know I can take the abuse of a few hits."

"Sure you can." Gohan smiled apologetically. "Anyways, what could you possibly know about sex anyhow, Dad?" Secretly, he had always imagined nothing. "I know you've done it at least twice with Mom, but seriously."

"Oh, much more than twice." His bright eyes beamed, while Gohan's smile plummeted. "ChiChi explained it to me a very long time ago. She told me how special it's supposed to be between two people that are in love. She always said I could only ever talk about it with her, though. But as offending as women like her might find it to discuss, I forbid nothing from my ears with you, my son." Arcing his back into the grass with a stretch, he smiled drowsily at Gohan. "You could say anything to me and I swear that I'd think no less of you. I only hope it's the same for you with me—but I'd never want to offend you."

"Why are you saying this?"

"I don't know." He sighed deeply. "I suppose I just want you to know how I feel about you, is all."

Laying back down in the grass, a little closer to his dad this time, Gohan said, "I do it a lot, you know." Immediately, he blushed with how easily he'd been able to confess the deed.

"Hell, me too."

They exchanged sympathetic smiles.

"She won't take care of you even on nights like this, will she, Daddy?" He asked this in meek tones. Even though he was already sixteen, he tried to pull off his most innocent expression. "It's got nothing to do with me, but if it's true, I really find that fact cruel."

He simpered. "Gohan, your sympathy is a bit unwarranted. We aren't in love, so I'd never expect her to."

"What was that...?"

Unpunctually prudent, Goku shut his mouth.

"Dad." He blinked, feeling remarkably unbothered by what he had just discovered. "You don't love Mom?"

"That's right," he conceded, then resigned to closing his eyes. "I never really did, I don't think, but I did try. Don't misunderstand, though. I love your mother, only not as a soul-mate."

"But..." He struggled to curb his skyrocketing elation, "she's your wife."

"In name. When I came back, Gohan, she made it very clear to me that she no longer saw me as her husband. She's tired of me, and I've failed from the start to love her."

"Then, why did you come back?"

"You have to ask?" His eyes danced full of laughter. "You _know_ why." He clamped the boy's nose in between his fingers playfully. "For _you_, silly."

Gohan snatched at the hand molesting his face with grin, then laced their fingers together. "You didn't have to do that."

"Damn right I didn't have to. But I very much wanted to. Now come over here—let me hold you."

"That's probably not a good idea right now, Dad." The moon was in his blood, coursing netherward, but Goku already knew.

"If you insist. But I wouldn't mind, I'll have you know." Rubbing a thumb over Gohan's knuckles, he leaned in nearer on his side. "Do you mind a personal question?"

"Not if you don't mind if I hit you again if I happen to find that it's too personal."

He laughed. "I only wanted to know if you've ever been in love before."

Reluctant to impart anything about his love interest, he communicated his ill discomfort with a squeeze of Goku's hand. "Only once."

"Hm." Caressing the backside of his son's hand now, he spoke more softly. "What does it feel like—being in love? Can you tell me?"

Gohan considered and said simplistically, "Like warmth."

"Aw, cheese." He showed his teeth with an enormous grin. "I feel that way with everyone, even Bulma." He nudged the boy with his knee. "C'mon, you can tell me more than that, can't you?"

He bit his lip, fighting off his own unwillingness to speak about it. "Alright, then." Thinking of how best to make his father understand, he began with saying, "It feels much like when someone steals the last bite of your food, and you know that there's no way you can ever have it for yourself—the best part of the whole meal—ever again."

"Oh, so she was taken," Goku surmised with understanding. "That's not good." He supposed this spat of drama had occurred within the four years of his absence. "Tell me more, Gohan."

"It's like a knot in here." With the tremulous fingers of his one free hand, he pointed inward towards the heart. "But it's also..." he considered what he was feeling at the moment, "like euphoria."

"I feel that way only _after_ I get the last bite."

"It feels wonderful and right when I'm in his arms, when I'm with him, and I just never want it to end."

Goku's eyebrows shot high to the sky. "Wait. Did you say _his_?"

Cursing: "Dammit, I meant _her_."

Goku sat straight up, and snatched his son upright with him. "In the likely case that, right now, you're assuming something like that could ever matter to me, I'll have you know that I was past the age of twelve before I ever figured out what the difference between boys and girls was." He shrugged. "To me they were all just people capable of love."

"Past twelve?" Gohan sulked. "I knew the difference way before then." Roshi's pornographic materials had been the worst of any trauma.

Goku decided to prod him more. "And you also said _when you're in his arms_, which could only mean that you're in love with him even now, is that it?" He volleyed a barrage of questions rapid fire. "Is he human? Do I know him? No, I probably never met him before. Maybe this is the spot where you two hung out before you thought to bring me here. That actually makes me a little jealous. You won't even take me somewhere special, but somewhere used." he scowled immaturely, half-jokingly. "Did the two of you ever go out on a date? If you did, does that mean you've broken up?—since, after all, you're talking as if he's already been taken. Gosh, that'd be rough. If someone stole the last bite of _anything_ off my plate, I wouldn't know what to do with myself! I'd be so angry. And depressed. _Not_ my last bite."

Gohan grumbled, on the verge of screaming. Just barely was he able to refrain from launching another attack when his father asked the unexpected.

"Did he ever kiss you?"

Something about the question lulled Gohan into clammy stillness.

Goku swallowed audibly, interpreting the sudden change in his son's demeanor as an affirmative. He let go of their hands—which he had forgotten he'd been grasping together the entire time—then fell backward onto his rump.

Gohan leaned back as well, holding himself up by his hands, expression startled. "No," he answered gently. "At least, not in the way you probably mean." Heavy lashes curtained the glossy orbs of his eyes, and his mind spun backwards through the several years of familial pecks, cheek-to-cheek rubs, snuggles, shared baths, shared beds, and shared wounds. "If he had ever kissed me like that, then there wouldn't be anything left to confuse me or hold me back from telling him how I feel." The brine in his eyes threatened to spill over, but he constrained the emotion from manifesting as best as he could. Things were going terribly wrong with the conversation, but he hadn't the power to redirect it, nor the oratory smarts to deflect the obvious dangers that loomed ahead.

"Why don't you be the one to tell him, then?" Goku reasoned, speaking before thinking. "It might spare you the distress."

"I'm not one for first moves."

Goku's heartstrings strummed at the dear sight of his son's sweet confusation.

Gohan went on explaining, "_He'd_ need to be the one. He's the older of either of us after all, so it's only right that it be that way. I can't bring myself to even try. I'm just too scared to. But I—" he took in a frightful breath of crisp air as he considered the thing that he was admitting to "—I think I really love him."

Extreme displeasure creased his father's face. At that, Gohan lost the nerve to say anything more. "I'm sorry, Dad. I should have just been silent when you asked. I should've known you'd be upset." He hung his head.

"Not at all." Goku indicated for Gohan to sit up proper, then gently squeezed at his chin until their gazes locked. "That's not what's wrong in the least, Gohan." His smile was genuine. Heart-warming. Though inside he felt rotten. "Don't think for a second that I could ever be upset with you. I don't care who it is you love." The half of him that was Gohan's father was beside himself with joy for his son's forlorn crush; but the other half simply ached, as though he were losing vital little pieces of himself here and there. "Why don't you tell me who it is?" he pressured a bit. "If you tell me, then maybe I could help you figure out how to best approach him. Since you're so shy and all."

"Thanks, but it's not possible."

Mildly dejected, Goku frowned. "If you won't even give me a name, then that _must_ mean that I know him."

"No. You don't understa—"

"The only one, then, that I can ever imagine it possibly being is," he raised an observant finger into the air, "Yamcha."

Gohan reeled. _"What?_ Are you out of your mind?! Gross. No way!"

Goku blinked as though it had only been obvious. "But he's the best looking of everyone that I know. Well, second to Vegeta, that is. And I _know_ that you don't like him."

"Will you just leave me alone about it? I can't tell you who it is, so stop asking!"

"I'm only trying to help," Goku argued more seriously. "I want you to be happy, Gohan, instead of damning yourself like this without so much as a fight."

Gohan stared, suddenly attentive. Goku rarely shouted, but he very nearly did.

"If you never tell him, then you will never know what could have been. Its as simple as that." Goku leaned over and took his son's face into the cupping of his hands. "You're seriously going to just sit idle and watch while someone far less worthy than yourself swoops in to steal the last bite right off from your plate. Even if I promised you with all my heart that he'd have to be an _idiot_ to reject your love, you'd allow yourself to drift into loneliness still. Wouldn't you?" Clearly upset now, he dropped his outstretched hands back into his lap. Gohan maintained the eye-contact, though with difficulty. "Even if he doesn't like men either, he'd be really hard-pressed to say no. Just looking at you, Gohan, you make even _my_ heart skip a beat." The boy blushed profusely. "You're _incredibly_ beautiful, and what you have to offer this guy is invaluable and pure. If he _can't_ see that, then what are you doing with him to begin with? Why waste the energy and time on waiting for requite? Why not find out right away if whether or not your love is in vain?" Gohan's lips trembled as he imagined telling him. "There's nothing better that you could ever do for yourself than to follow the direction of your own heart, wherever it may lead. It's what I've always done, and it's never let me down. Regardless of what my brain may be thinking at the time to counterstand the way of my heart, I will always still follow it without a doubt or question, because it has yet to fail me." Regardless of the lambastings of rationality, it would always be the best thing that he could ever do for himself.

Gohan wrung his face up as if he were about to cry. His secrets were so many. His love was so vulgar; but it felt so right, so beautiful.

"Just tell him."

But he couldn't.

"I like someone too, you know." Goku's demeanor had softened. "And I fully intend to tell him."

Chagrined, Gohan gaped up at his father with pretty, wide eyes, mindfully reminding himself to conceal the outrage now infecting him through to the marrow. "I never thought you liked men, Daddy." He gulped.

"Yes. Well. This one _was_ unexpected." Looking levelly at his son, he stroked the boy's fringe back and forth, watching his son blink cutely as the dark strands passed over his eyes. Soft as wingtips, he touched Gohan's cheek with the backing of his hand. Gohan's eyes fluttered shut as he nestled into the touch.

"Tell me who it is, Dad?"

Goku thought for a clever moment. "That wouldn't be very fair."

"Why not?" Eyes gleamed back up at him again, wide, black, and full of youthful sparkle.

"You won't tell me who you like. So why should I tell you?" He was never the sort to use mental weapons against others, but the bait was handed over gently enough.

"Dad." Gohan growled. "That's different."

"Is it?" Tilting his head sideways, he teased, "Well, I don't know."

"It's different, and you know it." Changing his tact, he assumed a more cherubic moue. "_Please_, tell me. I won't say a word to anyone, I promise!"

"But I'm scared to."

Predictably, Gohan didn't get the hint.

Couching himself beside his son on the grassy bed of earth, Goku determined to be more straightforward. After all, he could rectify the matter if he needed to, if things took a turn for the worse. The last thing he wanted was for their relationship to be ruined for his own mindless missteppings. Upon his confession—only if the need arose—he could try to disclaim it as Platonic, explaining to Gohan that both of his sons were the closest that he would ever find to arriving at true love. He could work with that false explanation, and maybe his son would believe it.

He had to at least try. He needed to. His heart indicated that something good _could_ result of directness—and that was all that really mattered to him then. If there existed a slim bit of chance for the feeling to be mutual, then that only meant that the chance _existed_; and that was all the ground that Goku required to move forth with the confession. Though he would never bet on the outcome, and he couldn't soothsay where his heart was leading with this, he had never ignored it before and refused to begin now for the fear gripping his heart. It would make no sense to, not after all these years, and with the boy crawling snuggly in against him, patiently waiting to hear the answer.

"I'm very much in love with him," Goku started, inviting him into the fold of his vast arms. "It feels every bit like you described to me. I feel invincible with him at my side—it's the greatest feeling."

Gohan railed the earlier question back at him in friendly revenge. "Did he ever kiss you?"

His lips spread ear-to-ear. "Once. On the cheek. Months ago."

But Goku had been dead months ago, Gohan realized. Did that mean it was someone who he had met in Otherworld? After all the trouble it had taken to get his father back on Earth, was this special someone the real reason for his stay? Jealousy felt like a slithering wet thing in his belly. Nose mashed into Goku's chest, he started to wish that he had never asked.

"I've known him his whole life, but it was only recently that I started to understand these feelings for what they were." Goku felt as if he had always somehow known that he would come to love his own boy this way. That is was only inevitable. Inexorable. "There's no sweeter voice than his own. No sweeter laughter."

"Sounds like you, Daddy," Gohan cooed. "Now I know it can't be Krillin. His voice sounds really funny."

Goku's heart was beating so quickly now against the caging of his ribs that it frankly made him sore. Lowering his voice further, he attempted to shed free the obscurity of his words. "You know... he saved the earth once. All on his own. When he was little more than a child."

Gohan swallowed tightly. "When?"

"Five years ago." Shielding his son from the leering face of the moon, Goku pressed his nose against his son's head, into the unruly tangles of hair that he now grasped between his fingers. All this had caused a definite reaction in his young boy.

The demi-Saiyan acted as if he were going to lift up his head, but then thought better of it. It couldn't be. He would be lying to himself if he ever thought his father might be...

"It's you, Gohan."


	7. Chapter 7 - Moon-drunk

Chapter 7

Moon-drunk

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball, or Dragon Ball Z/GT, nor do I make money off of these FANfictions.

A/N & Warnings: [Thank you everyone for the comments/reviews, I enjoy and appreciate each and every one of them. I never knew that Toriyama forgot about the tails, and I enjoyed the provided video links as well. Thanks for the readership and views! They mean a lot.]  
Content warning, Gohan cries an awful lot. What else is new. The boy feels a lot emotionally, so it's allowed.  
Oh right, and there is a lengthy section of (incestuous) sexuality between our main pair, but I've warned about this before, so hopefully it doesn't come as a surprise. The chapter-title is an obvious giveaway. I don't mince anything for anyone, especially when it comes to these must-be-described moments, so expect a lot of extended and explicit picture-painting of the little thing that happens. (I'm serious, though. It's _very_ descriptive and very long.) All sex-scenes are meant to be loving unless otherwise stated in the future; no demeaning, humiliation, abusing, or sudden porn-star behavior.  
No one (I nor you) is promoting incest by writing or reading about it. This is yaoi-fantasy. Read at your own discretion. Please don't be afraid to comment! I'm interested in your thoughts and opinions.  
Here's to your continued enjoyment. Till next chapter!

Merry-Belated Christmas, Happy Holidays, and enjoy the New Year's everyone!

* * *

Goku waited patiently for a response; anything at all. The clouds blended the moon into a swirl-warped monochrome. Laden quiet scourged the air like a gaseous poison that made his blood run cold.

Nothing was immediately forthcoming from his son. Abjectly, he considered the escape route he had forged to circumvent the confession entirely with a carefully constructed rephrasing. But of all the horrible happenings that could have taken place, his son never spurned him or spoke a scathing word. It was only by that fact alone that Goku maintained his otherwise flagging composure.

Gohan stiffened, and, with a mighty effort of will, lifted up his head from where it reclined on Goku's chest. Brow clenched as if in doubt, he gaped like a child who didn't understand the ways of things, let alone the driftless miracles.

"Are you keeping me in suspense for any particular reason?" Goku asked, concealing fearfulness. "Or are you just ignoring what I said?"

Gohan's voice was whisper-thin. "No, Daddy. I'm just... shocked."

Goku afforded a wry grin.

The demi-Saiyan bit his bottom-lip irresolutely. In a moment, he shivered apart into a torrential drench of tearful gasping. He whimpered wetly, choking on the thick substance building up in his throat. "God, Daddy." He snuffled. Every other following word came punctuated with either a gasp or a wheeze of sudden breathlessness. "You have—no idea—what it is—that you've—just done."

He appeared to be suffering horribly, but Goku said nothing about it, and only stared lamely with emphatic concern rucking up his face. The trembling and incoherence that accompanied his son's paroxysm bothered him. Furthermore, he couldn't discern if whether it signified returned affection or detestation, or worse: some involuntary heartbreak incited by his cruelty for having made _any_ romantic advancement to begin with. Being thusly faced with the likely dissolution of their relationship, Goku astonished himself by regretting nothing.

But upon imagining being forced to endure the unrequite, Goku felt a fissure in his heart already, splintering around the edges like a crack on ice. Hell would be more pleasant. Dying twice into nonexistence would be the more charitable of dismal fates. Seeing Gohan married off would destroy him completely. Or if the man whom Gohan claimed to love ended up accepting him—the damned toad would be a fool not too—he'd be constrained to suffer in silence, divided from his son, left to weather the endless rages and rampages of his captious wife, whom he never loved from the beginning.

Goku reminded himself that no rejections had yet been hurled upon him, though it was soon to be expected. If his son, by some blessed intervention of the cherub-archer, proceeded to match Goku heart-for-heart, the certain chaos that that implicated razed any romantic notions he might have had for a peaceable liaison. Should ChiChi ever find out, she would see his double-death through to completion personally, snuffing his spirit into the Realm of Nonexistence with a simple clouting of her broomstick. Word of the illicit romance would spread in the infectious manner that characterized all racy rumors. Everyone would attempt to dissuade them. The prospect of further severed relations scared him—but he loved the boy so much that, overall, it scarcely mattered. The string of inevitable repercussion could only be curbed and detracted or delayed, but the truth remained that a disaster could occur at every turn: upon every secretly shared kiss and encrypted dalliance.

Goku pitied himself for even presuming on requite. But he couldn't help but supply to himself how it often felt like the demi-Saiyan also loved him, in his own disastrous way. In previous times, with the way that Gohan kissed his face, or the way he wove their fingers dotingly, it felt like they were nestling lovers.

With regard to the one year that they had spent together in the Time Chamber, Goku presently believed that even then he had been falling deep in love. He remembered cutting away the unkempt length of Gohan's long black hair in that isolated space. The result had been becoming. The man within Gohan showed his newborn leafy shoots, and he supposed that the love song in his heart had its subtle beginnings from then on. But he was only self-speculating, curious to know the truth of how it all began, as he knew a love like this was such an unheard-of rarity that nothing about it was to be understood, even by men of intellect.

Love was nothing reasonable or intellectual, though, he fast concluded. It was never meant to be studied or dissected to its origins. Love was too far removed from logic for that sort of detached application. He would rather live with _inexplicable_ characterizing the content of his heart than anything else. _Inexplicable_ was quite alright. He didn't feel the need to concern himself with much beyond his feelings; such cold dealings could be left to the despondent cynics.

Goku contented to close his eyes and listen to the continued weeping. Arms clad around him with a compulsory straining of the muscles. Gohan cried inconsolably like a wretch. His unfaith crumbled with the impact of Goku's expressed regard for him. He was in an ecstasy of tears.

They occupied the minutes in this way, Gohan exerting to recover, Goku feeling helpless to allay him. He took care to let him cry, knowing anything he said then could do no better good than courteous silence. And Gohan was grateful for it. To wear his own hysteria down was the only thing he needed then simply _because_ he was so happy, being so struck in the face by his own false fears as it were.

It was unfair that he couldn't help but cry, and blush, and hyperventilate, and grin grotesquely. "Daddy, my heart hurts," he croaked feebly.

"I can take it back if it bothers you this much," Goku let slip out on impulse. Mentally slapping a hand over his forehead, Goku realized that by _saying_ so, he had just foiled his own immediate means to cleanly backpedal on the love-confession. Now, he was at the mercy of meriting forgiveness.

But then: "Please, don't do that." Gohan wiped his face across Goku's shirt in an orifice-leaking dribble. "I'm just so happy." The bravery with which Goku had risked mortification for the announcement had Gohan frankly staggered and dazed. "I've never been this happy before. I love you, too. Really, I do. I could never say it before because I was so scared of you _hating_ me for it." He clutched at the painful sensation in his breast, head dangling over Goku's shoulder. He whispered hoarsely, "My heart feels like it's going to burst apart..."

Shadows flitted back into their proper place as the transient moon resurfaced. Never slighting his embrace, squeezing all the tighter, Goku murmured with all surety, "I could _never_ hate you, Gohan. From the moment you were born, I swear you were my first love." A kiss smashed into his cheek on those words. Gohan's teeth clattered, and he kissed again, this time with more control.

While Goku was unused to sobering moments such as this, he couldn't help but fall within its weighty snare. He knew naught about romance, but with Gohan everything seemed to come naturally. Lips, breath, words, tears, and hands were lain upon him until his hesitation fled, and then all he could feel was love pounding through him like life-blood. His usual blitheness had fast flown, and he inclined to feel things in a way he never had before. Gohan held that sort of sway on him; it was a dangerous power that he wielded, but Goku trusted him implicitly, being wholly devoted to the fellow-feelings that impregnated the atmosphere and brought them leaning near.

With a deliberate turn of the head, Goku chafed noses with Gohan. Their mouths aligned and Goku tugged him into a warm and gentle kiss. His son stilled, lungs frozen. Blood poured into his cheeks. Every muscle in his body tensed in one still second. With the smallest of startled sounds, he sweetly muzzled in. Their noses bent together as Goku cocked his head aslant and recommenced the kiss with deep precision. Gohan groped around his father's solid neck and shoulders, needing an anchor for the weakness melting through his body. With remarkable ease, the Saiyan warmly worked their lips together, tasting and nipping with the careful edges of his teeth. Their fingers twirled into one another's clothes. Gohan laughed inwardly for the triumph of the night. Breathing fervid, Goku crushed the boy against him greedily. The stars spectated on the unfolding affair with twinkling prudishness. The wind quavered. Nature stood protective, shielding the kindred souls in their private exchange.

They stopped, reluctant but near breathless, and looked at one another.

During the silence that came, Goku limned the angular outlines of his son's sanguinary skin. He was never very eloquent with words, especially where it concerned courtship, but he stated the one thing on his mind just then. "You're very beautiful."

Dimples showing, Gohan grinned. "Look who made me so," he said. It wasn't at all strange or revolting to his palate to allude to their relation now. It no longer mattered.

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"No, sir." He cherished the absurd passion with all devoted foolishness. "Does it bother _you_?"

"Not at all," he said. "I'm not ashamed of this." It was, after all, their right. He adored his son dearly in ways he'd fain reveal.

"Can I still call you Dad when we're alone?"

"I prefer it."

Gohan blushed with antic joy. Strong hands massaged into his spasm-exhausted muscles, digging deep, and the boy relaxed into the support-frame his father. The hands on him drove steady, uniform in the strength with which they focused on the sore parts of the demi-Saiyan's body. Over and over, the teen could feel the press and prod of his father's lips and nose as he dove headfirst into the disheveled hair to lay forth kisses.

Gohan propped his chin on his dad's chest and smiled. "This is impossible," he said, with no particular concern.

"Is it?" Goku's rhetorical tone declared it wasn't.

The youthful face was white as ivory, faintly flushed in the shineless shadow of the cloud-mottled sky. The eyes were bright with love, a little puffy and pink from their emotional toils. The cheeks glowed with the dry stain of dissolved tears.

"It feels like a dream." Goku's voice was low and mesmerizing. His son nodded in bashful agreement, fanning his eyelids closed. _Too beautiful to be real_, he thought, while lightly placing his thumb against the pink flesh of his son's lower lip.

The dark thickened around them, the wind droned through their ears. Gohan clenched his fists around his father's shoulders, swaddled into his protective hold. The place grew cold and windy, black and dreary, and his father's arm tightened like tweed rope around his waist. Goku's breath was at his teeth, the very tips of their noses touched, sparking their senses into incandescence once again. The moon's spell-waves conjured their genital cravings with more ruthlessness. The wind beat at their bodies. A low boom sounded as electricity surged the sky.

"It's gonna rain," said Goku. A droplet of water struck his nose as if on cue. Storm clouds blotted out the stars with their thunder-flashing depths. Gusts shred through their clothes. Goku placed his fingers to his forehead, and the couple vanished from the spot, just as the clouds tumbled to impale the earth with quenching rain. Lightening struck into the treetops.

* * *

Goku flipped the boy onto the bed and ravaged him with a playful snarl. Gohan cackled and fought against his presiding strength, and cried, "Daddy, stop it! I'm still sore!"

"Mm," Goku kissed the bulge of his Adam's apple, yanking the neckline of the pajama shirt down to smell his son's clean skin. "And here I thought we were going to make love beneath the stars." He flashed a wicked glint.

"You're teasing." Gohan's smile was huge. He thrust a kick threateningly at his dad's inner thigh.

Smiling exaggeratedly as the foot thrust into him, he said "I think _you're_ the one who's teasing."

"Gross! Stop it." Gohan mashed their lips together.

"You contradict yourself a lot," Goku pointed out. "Saying one thing, when your _body_ is sending an entirely different message for me to go on by." He locked Gohan's wrists into the mattress above his head. "Only women should ever be that complicated."

"It gives me pleasure to see you frustrated."

"That's rather masculine of you. Or simply sadistic." Straining to hold the youth pinned into place, Goku kissed him again, and inhaled, luxuriating in his son's scent. "Training doesn't feel half as good as kissing you does. I'll never get tired of this."

"Now _that_ flatters me, Dad."

"I've dreamed of kissing you before, but I never imagined that it could compare to my favorite things."

"I thought I _was_ your favorite thing." Gohan feigned heartbreak.

"You are, you sly little monkey." He pounced and smothered the boy in a spirited assault. Gohan whacked and threw Goku down into the mattress, stuffing his face with every pillow that lay within reach. Grappling and tossing each other around upon the bed, the two snorted sportive insults, ascended to their Super Saiyan forms, throwing punches and knee bashes. In the middle of their gamesome contest for dominance, a reverberant thump whammed against the opposite side of the farthest wall. "_Shut up in there!_"

Their giggles were conspiratorial.

"You're so loud, Gohan."

"Nope. I think that's you she heard."

"Not when I pinch you like this—"

"Gah—!" Slapping a hand over his mouth, Gohan glared.

Another louder thud against the wall.

"You see?" Goku beamed immaturely. "You're as loud as a teatless baby, getting the attention of everyone else in the house like that."

"That's a dirty trick you pulled." Gohan raised a fist and sent it sailing.

Catching the knuckles in one palm, Goku entwined their limbs and leaned up for a kiss. Gohan couldn't help but moan sweetly as his loins were set aflame.

The bed was in disarray, haphazardly divested, the bedsheets in a tangle. The woodwork creaked as Goku plucked off his own pajama pants and dropped onto his back, spreading out his limbs. "Let's go to bed. Or we'll hear about it tomorrow if she has to scream to shut us up one more time."

Gohan rolled into his dad's side, and draped an arm and leg over his body. "Did she like doing it with you?"

"Not really," he answered without a hesitation.

"Why not?"

Goku could hardly claim to know for sure, but from the arguments he had endured with ChiChi, he could guess. "I suppose that deep down she knew." He breathed in deep, holding the oxygen within his lungs before exhaling robustly. "I could go through the actions with your mother, but it felt empty and rote without loving her. Somehow even I knew there should be more to making love than straining naked to an end. I once asked Roshi about it." Mussing Gohan's hair, he chuckled. "Who better to ask, am I right?"

"If you say so," Gohan said. He had his misgivings about the old man, and not without reason.

"Well. After hearing everything I had to say, he decided that I bore no real attraction to her at all. And he seemed rather surprised of it. My marriage to ChiChi was a sham, as far as he was concerned, since I didn't love her in the way a man is expected to love the woman that he marries." Glancing at Gohan, he said, "But _you_ came from it, and that's enough for me to never regret it. At any rate, I love her in my own way, and for the gift of you." He frowned, placing the point of his chin on Gohan's forehead. "If that made sense."

"It did." He cuddled in.

"I can't wait to have you."

"Then take me now, you jerk. I can't wait for it, either."

"It would only be wrong." Goku comfortably shut his eyes.

"Why?"

"You can't consent to me on the night of the full moon."

"I'm consenting now."

"You _think_ you are."

Gohan mumbled a rebuttal that went ignored.

In time Goku fell asleep, heavy-limbed and breathing deep. Gohan only hoped that his gentlemanly tact would not outlive the night. He was anxious to consummate. And it was no longer guilt-riddling to imagine their having sex with each other anymore. Bedding and lovership seemed only the natural course of it, and he simply could not endure the meantime in sexual indolence.

The rainwaters, having finally swarmed the house, clattered upon the eaves. The windows were latched, the bedroom door secure in its moorings.

Gohan sniffed at his father just below a pec. His cock stirred at the day's-worth scent of the sleeping Saiyan; the pungency of musk, sweat, and something else more primeval underlaid, made Gohan eager to taste the skin upon his tongue.

Moving as stealthily as he could, Gohan rearranged himself and rest his nose into his dad's shirt, breathing deep the provocative smell. His mouth watered with libidinous hunger. Through his pajama trousers, he rubbed the nether-limb until he was reeling in a hot delirium of good feeling. The fondling of his hand quickened, desperate to end the guilty deed quickly before he gave in to licking the cotton fabric.

Abandon was imminent. He grit his teeth upon a strangled moan and shoved both his hands _inside_ his pants this time, pumping with more fury. The foreskin unwrapped and rewrapped itself around the tingling girth. Orgasm was upon him. It's staggering power came first with a forewarning—but then quickly receded the moment he slit open his eyes to steal one final greedy glimpse of his father sprawled out beside him. Through a tear-bleared range of view, Gohan was greeted with Goku's placid gaze.

Though he thought he had been discreet, though his movements had been short and controlled so as not to shake the bed, the man had caught him in the vulnerable act of the most intense self-pleasure he had ever had.

Goku stared watchfully, with all the serenity of a statue engraved upon the grim line of his mouth.

Gohan's cock lurched with subsidence. "Dad, I—" he started. A calloused finger pressed upon his lips, then gently grazed them into silence.

Goku lowered the finger from where it was paused and described a meandering pathway—over the rocky ripplings and muscle-corrugations—along the length of his son's abdomen, blazing a downward trail toward the sleek exposed navel. He outlined the bellybutton and stretched apart the cavity with a splay of his two fingers.

Gohan bit his lip, the heat in his cheeks rising to unbearable limits—he thought he might even emit some steam, but it only took on the sanguinary hue that Goku appeared to long for.

"You're so noisy," Goku breathed.

"I'm sorry—"

The fingers at his bellybutton laid upon the bulge over his pants; Gohan yanked his own hands free. He made a noise like a strangled puppy, gripping fists into the fabric of Goku's t-shirt. His father barely skimmed the area, but the sensation that the large hands effected was marvelous. He shrank from the daring gaze of his father and wetly licked his lips, giving in to what he suspected was about to occur. "Dad, she'll hear me."

"Are you planning to scream?"

He shook no. "Unless you make me..."

"Gohan," he ordered, vehemently. "Stop thinking. Forget everything that exists beyond these four walls—beyond this bed even. Right now, it's just you and me, and what I'm about to do to you." He threw his son beneath him and propped upright into a prowl.

Gohan's young cock screamed with the morbid swell, but Goku's remained soft, as far as he could tell in peeking down between their bodies at his loose boxers. A finger prod the distension in his pants, and he gasped high and desperately. His eyes were shut too tightly, and his father addressed the issue in a tone that brooked no noncompliance. "Open your eyes for me." The finger stroked the sensitive length in teasing lines from base to tip, tickling over the layers of his clothes. Their gazes held. Gohan formed words with his mouth that came empty, but read like approval to his father's covetous eyes.

Goku worked the trousers and boxers down Gohan's slim sides, past his smooth round buttocks, until the cock was standing free from the modest veiling. Goku touched where the bead of moisture peeped through the ruddy slit, never looking down at the swollen prick that he tampered with. Slowly and deliberately, he tapped and circled the pad of his thumb over the wet glistening of the tip. Gohan shut his eyes involuntarily—it felt too good—and Goku nestled their foreheads together with a growl, shutting his eyes to the feel of it as well. He kissed his son's face then dug the forefinger beneath the foreskin, thinking only of his son's most sense-brutal indulgence. Gohan's entire body jerked with a genuine upstart of hot abandon. He moaned in a wet daze as the fingers touched the turgid veins webbing the entire length of his erect cock. Unable to abide the delicious teasing in docility, he undulated bodily, rubbing himself into Goku's palm. The friction made him tearful in the eyes, and the pleasure of scratching at the wonderful itch made him frantic with good sensation. Goku moaned, fascinated about his son's motions, holding the boy sheathed safely within his palms. Fluid leaked abundant from the cloven cock-slit, slickening the member into a lustrous, ruddy polish, wetting Goku's fingers lavishly.

Even with the moon largely to blame, it was remarkable to see his son in such a furious state of base instinct. Eyes aglow with the voluptuous visions unfolding beneath him, he groaned approvingly at the submission of his boy. He kissed Gohan with every dreg of his own tortured passion. He tickled the cock with delicate handling, smiling at every little groan that proceeded forth out of his son's own grasping lips.

The concupiscence of the sounds emitting from between his lips and legs made Goku's own manhood react ecstatically; blood flowed into his nether-member with all the haste of a love-starved animal, driving him near dizzy with the suddenness of the downward surge. Goku reeled like a man intoxicated. It was ecstasy to feel his son writhing in the acute throes of passion. The sky wept rain, and the pain of their lunar-aches suffered to beautiful extremes. The outcry of their cocks was mitigated only by the promise of an eventual shared relief.

Gohan took hold of his father's wrists, guiding the deft fingers lower to the root, then to the fleshy sac that hung beneath. Goku touched every presented bit with purpose, making the demi-Saiyan moan and sigh. Gohan's touch on his arm felt as though it were laced with fire at the fingertips, tearing at his sensory ability to translate anything he felt into something comprehendible. With one hand stroking his son's cock, his other petted at the balls and rubbed the root with enough good skill to make Gohan drag him back down onto the bed with him.

Lying beside his son, Goku drowned into the lucid depths of yet another kiss. The heat, the panting melodies of both their compressed lips, made him feel as if they were dying in an all-consuming blaze of harrowed lust. The moon stirred them into weeping drunkenness, and they cried against each other's mouths, voiceless with reckless want, both near blind and mindless with famished instinct.

Gohan never touched Goku, in fact forgetting to, indulging selfishly and uselessly in the delicate massaging of his father's hands. The arrival of the moment was upon him anyway. He had no other concern but the threatening build-up tightening in his balls. The sweetest of love-sounds wrung out of Gohan's throat—his cock quivered even as it was held. Goku ventured his mouth to other places on the demi-Saiyan's pale and beautiful neck, and the boy seized the opportunity to cry; his breathing heaved, mind blurring into a white clash of dripping heat. He could no longer differentiate sound, from smell, from feel, from taste; every sense meshed together into one brilliant orgiastic flare-up of white light. A tongue was on his neck, in his ear, and on his lips again sucking out all of his breath. Gohan dripped—through the man's nimble fingers, onto the white bedsheets, onto both their stomachs—shivering, jerking, weeping sticky into his father's mouth and fists. Then, twitching with the last of the orgasm, the climax ebbed in liquid waves that left him moaning in a stupor of wild bemusement.

Goku paused for a moment to steal a peek at the young one lain in twisted recumbence, pink about the lips and cheeks, glittering at the outer edges of the eyes. In that violent orgasm Gohan still retained his innocence, being impossible to desecrate even in the grip of a fleshy rapture. He was perfect, like a fevered angel. He eyed the swollen lips as they parted on a delicious note of satisfaction. The black eyes glazed and faded into the back of his skull with one more passing wave. He peered down at the thickness buried in his hands, just in time to see the final crème emission. His son's body shuddered meekly. Goku gazed in utter worship of him. He rubbed a thumb on the cock's sticky underbelly, then rewrapped his slime-frothed palms over the entire fast-deflating thing. Gohan refocused his gaze on him, dazed, sopping drunk in the afterglow.

"That is the most beautiful thing," Goku breathed, "that I've ever seen in my entire life, Gohan."

Gohan touched his father's cheek and smiled tiredly. Lowering that same hand, he tugged acquisitively on the waistband of the Saiyan's boxers.

Goku's mind fogged with the expectation of his son's touch on his own vein-bloated cock. Goku kissed him and took his arms around the boy. The wait to feel the slighter grip rubbing all around him was excruciating.

When Gohan had barely twitched the boxers down his father's hips a little ways, a tiny tapping sounded at the door, shocking them both out of their passion. They froze, certain that no one had heard them in their erotic exchanges with the rain being as loud as it was. Another tapping. Gohan let go of the waistband and watched terrified as the door creaked open on squeaky hinges. Goku threw the tossed-up bed-clothes over them both up to their shoulders.

"Daddy? Gohan?" spoke a chary voice.

"Goten!" Goku shot straight up, as the child pattered in on small bare feet.

"I had a nightmare," he whined pathetically. "There's monsters in my bedroom trying to eat me." Rubbing a paw into one sleep-squinted eye, Goten sniffed softly, burbling with withheld tears.

Goku relaxed. Then smiled gently. "Don't be afraid. Go back to your room. I'll be there in a little while."

"But, Daddy... Can't I just... sleep in here with you two?" He shifted his wide eyes toward his brother, who fluttered full of fear, equally just as wide-eyed for the near-accident that both he and his father nearly suffered. Goten interpreted the expression as proof to his child's-hallucinations. "See?" he cried. "Gohan senses the monsters too! Daddy, _please_ let me sleep in here!" He pattered closer.

"Goten—stop right there!" Goku's tone was clipped with urgency, but the small boy only saw it as anger, and quailed immediately at the perceived lash-out. He struggled to find the right words that might convince the child, feeling guilty for needing to devise a lie at all. "Gohan's not feeling well," he fabricated. "I was just taking care of him." Goten gawped, first at Goku, then at his brother who, after all, was blanched as white as any sickly thing. "I don't want you to get sick too, you understand? I need to at least rinse off before I go into your room."

"Wash your hands, Daddy!" Goten ordered sternly, fully defensive of the maintenance to his own health. But then he looked at Gohan sympathetically, who achieved a smile and said, "Don't worry, Goten. I'll be alright. Just do as Father says." The child groused, pouted, pivoted on his heel, and re-shut the door as he marched back out compliantly.

Goku turned quickly on his son, ready to spew profuse apologies.

"Don't feel bad," Gohan preempted. "I'm sure we'll be needing to put up with this sort of thing a lot from now on." Goku sighed and stroked his face as if to assent. "It's only to be expected. You're still his father and not all mine to hog so selfishly, like I've been doing all this time. Goten needs you too, and I'm completely fine with it. Honest." He smiled sweetly. "Besides, I finally have what I've been wanting _all_ this time." And now he blushed, eyes glittering. "Heck, I even got a little foretaste of all the fun we'll be having together from now on. Gosh, Dad, that was fun."

"You naughty boy," Goku laughed lightheartedly. "I love you."

"I love you too, old man." He grinned at Goku's resulting frown. "Better hurry up. You've got a _lot_ to clean yourself up from." He winked. "Make sure you clean between your fingernails, too; it always gets stuck in there for me. And come back if you can?" He clung as Goku started away from him. "Even though you have two snotty boys to take care of, _this one_ is madly in love with you." He pecked his cheek; Goku scooped him fully against his mouth.

After leaving the bedroom, Goku quickly beat himself flaccid, rinsed himself of the accumulated mess entirely, then changed into a clean shirt and fresh pair of boxers. Once in Goten's bedroom, the little bugger poked his head out from beneath the sheltering of a blanket, then vaulted over a pillow straight at him. Catching the child up within his arms, Goku asked to be pointed in the direction of each and every shadow-beast that dared lurk within the crevasses and obscure archways of his home. Sitting atop his bed like a lordling on a golden throne, Goten pointed circularly around. Goku made as if to the kill the non-existent devils, dashing them all back into hell-and-void with theatrical solicitations, until his son declaimed there were no more. Crawling into Goten's bed, he squeezed the child securely and asked about the terrible nightmare.

"It was a monster," Goten wailed. "It was big and pink, like a chewed up wad of bubble gum, and it had squinty eyes like _this_." He imitated. "It killed _everything,_ Daddy! Even _Mo-mmy!"_

"Goten," he nuzzled Goten's fatty cheek and smiled at the child's globular eyes. "That will never happen. I'll never allow anything to lay a hand on you, Gohan, your mother, _or_ your grandpa. I promise. You don't have to be afraid of anything, little guy."

Goten squeaked.

Lying on top of Goku's arm, the child waned back into dreams, leaving his dad unable to liberate himself at any point. But the Sun was fast to grant its mercy, abjuring the pandering moon of her meddlesome sneer.

* * *

A/N: Technically, they didn't have sex. So Goku held to his initial resolve in the end...sort of. Thanks to Goten.


	8. Chapter 8 - A Falling Out

Chapter 8

A Falling Out

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball, or Dragon Ball Z/GT, nor do I make money off of these FANfictions.

A/N: Content Warnings. Incestuous father/son sensuality between Goku and Gohan. No actual acts of sex. Also, family strife in the last half of this chapter, namely a really bad fallout between Goku and ChiChi *points to witty title*. I happen to like ChiChi's character, so I hope this does not read as if I have some fudanshi vendetta against her, that isn't my intent. I only wanted to take advantage of her emotional instability (a.k.a. insanity) and tendency to humorous displays of 'domestic violence', so that I could apply it with more serious designs to the circumstances in this fic. The argument is very emotional and unfunny (except to the ChiChi-hating readers, I suppose? lol).

I hope you enjoy! Comments are very welcome. Till next time.

* * *

Breakfast was awkward. There was silence all around. Gohan yawned inexorably over his plate, while Goten declared him ill. The littlest brother addressed their father for validation on that account, and Goku was compelled, for the sake of appearances, to corroborate the claim.

Unaware of the full moon that had plagued the skies that previous night, ChiChi attributed the noisome fumbling that had awoken her, in addition to her son's drooping eyes and paled complexion, to Gohan's vaunted illness. Crying out in concern, she rounded the table and yanked the teen upright from his seat.

The Ox King ate observantly from his mountain heap of pancakes and egg, sipping bitter coffee from a bottomless mug. His braying daughter bustled Gohan away from the abundant food-spread at the table, forecasting that the heavy foods would only upset his stomach, and vociferating about Goten getting infected by the germ as well should Gohan inadvertently cough or sneeze within his presence.

ChiChi tumbled the resistant young man back into bed—noticing nothing strange about its state of disarray—and mummified him within the sheets like a newborn with only his head exposed. After fetching a tumbler of fresh-squeezed orange juice and a separate glass of ice cold water, she slapped a wet cloth over his tepid forehead and ordered him to remain in place, even as he protested that he was 'suddenly well again'.

Goku watched the nursing duties unfold, ladling forkful after forkful of hot, greasy, syrup-sweetened food into his vastly depleted bowels. His wife fussed around the kitchen counters, gathering medicinal provisions and scraping black bruises off of two slices of burnt toast.

Goten slid the adjacent seat that his brother had been seated in further away with a germaphobic nudging of his toe. "Ick! Ick!"

Goku chuckled through a mouthful and swigged his own mug of sugared, cream-cut coffee.

Pleading and groaning for a merciful morsel of the appetizing food that the rest of the family filled themselves up with, Gohan sniveled near to tears. ChiChi sternly rejected his appeals, then laid him to silence with a vapid mouthful of hard and crunchy toast.

After being made all the hungrier by the twain slices of bread and pulp-tart juice—the insignificance of the conservative offerings only worked to further flame his appetite—Gohan dropped back into an empty-bellied sleep, chased by the sleepless night into a doze that lasted one mere hour. Upon reawakening to the mirthful grinning of his father, who sat cross-legged and straight-backed beside him on the bed, Gohan stared awkwardly, uncertain what to do or say to the handsome man, given the eventful night that they had shared.

"Feeling better?" By the look of the wry twisting of the Saiyan's mouth, it was obvious that he was making an attempt to tease the healthy boy.

"Never felt bad to begin with." Gohan's eye sparked with accusation.

"Oh, lighten up. Goten thinks you're really sick—I had to lie!"

"What I wouldn't give for an elephant right now." Stomach rumbling, he lay useless on the pillow, haggard and hunger-weary.

"You look like death, Gohan. No wonder they bought the lie." Goku contemplated. "Well," he said, "your mother's working on some mending now. She should be busy for a while yet. How about a fish and lizard breakfast? My childhood favorite! Of course, coyote was always a treat, too, but I didn't stumble on those too often. I just loved it all, I guess. Can't go wrong with wild meat."

Launching himself out of the bedclothes, Gohan unlatched the casement and swung it wide. "Mom won't ever spot a fire through _this_ weather." He beamed cheerily through the sunken sallow hollows of his cheekbones.

"Only a Saiyan can shrivel that quickly from hunger," Goku commented in observing his son's aspect. "Let's hurry then, before the mists lift. Grab on, Gohan. All aboard the Son Goku I.T. Express!"

* * *

The warm morning air and the residual damp produced a rising steam that mantled the earth from the sun's golden shine. A fog hung low, weaving thickly with the steam, obscuring the cooking fire from ChiChi's idle view from home. The clamor of the glen's animate insect-life was muted by the aggregating walls of spinning mists. The wandering doe crept chary, concealed all the better by the atmosphere's airbrushed blur. And the predatory animals—slinking from copse to copse—circumvented the Saiyan pair, lest they also be caught up in the menu and hog-tied above the fire.

"It didn't bother you last night. But does it bother you today?" Goku flung a flat-bottomed rock, skipping it across the surface of the pond.

"No," Gohan replied, ripping skin-scales, and cleaving roasted fish flesh off a flame-browned skewer.

Flinging a second rock, munching a bite out of his own fire-blackened lizard, Goku went on with saying, "You avoided looking at your mother all morning long, and said nothing to her except to beg for food." The ringing ripples of the pond intersected, deforming the water's reflected clarity. "You feel guilty about what happened."

Gohan plucked a blade of grass out of the turf and shredded the green spear into tattered threads.

Silver rings lapped the grassy borderland, wetting the blue edges of his boot with a _splish_ and _splosh_. Goku lowered his upraised fist, the third pebbled skipper squeezed secure within his grip. "I knew better," he muttered, seemingly to himself in reprehension. "I knew better, and still I allowed myself to do those things to you." He thought for a moment, and though it was not meant as an excuse, he said, "My son. I'm so sorry for what I did. All I can offer to explain my sin is to tell you that you just looked so irresistible, with that expression of need lighting up your face." Feeling wistful, having evoked the memory of his son's enticing passion, Goku sighed, and then dismissed the misdeed from the pleasure of his recollection altogether.

Lowering the fish from its placement on his mouth, Gohan watched his father's backside with a dull aching in his heart.

"I fooled myself into ignoring what I knew was best and right. I can't ever undo it, but I'm truly sorry for wronging you the way I did. It was never supposed to happen that way, Gohan. I'll do anything to—"

"Dad, that's not what's wrong," Gohan interjected.

Looking over his shoulder at the young man, he asked, "Then what is it?"

The boy explained, "You witnessed for yourself how I enjoyed it. And you knew that I was trying to return the favor back to you, after I—" he blushed. "Granted, I was entertaining a hope that we might make love, instead of just touch each other." He blushed even deeper at that confession, and then proceeded: "But I never got to lay a finger on you, or steal a glimpse of your thing so that I could know what it looks like when you get...well, you know. If I'm sad at all, Dad, it's because I wasn't given a chance to reciprocate the act when I really wanted to. I never got to see what you look like when you come, and I never got to see the expression of your face when you felt _me_..." For some reason, he found it difficult to speak. "Thing is, Dad, I just wanted so much more."

With the prurient 'regrets' of his son now cleared away, Goku, looking vaguely dazed about the eyes, splashed him in the nose with chilly water. "I'm sorry. We'll make it fair tonight, I promise."

Dropping the finished stick into the dirt, he exclaimed, "_Geez_."

"What? You don't want to?" Goku skipped the third rock with a winsome smile.

Groaning into his palm with embarrassment, the boy rolled his eyes. "It's not that I don't want it, since I do. It's just, usually people treat the act with a bit more ceremony than that, instead of referring to it so casually."

"Ceremony, whatever that means, sounds too complicated. I'd rather straight-out tell you all the things that are on my mind. For example: Had Goten never knocked on the door and stole me from the bedroom, I believe that I would have given in and made love to you repeatedly until dawn." Goku skipped a fourth. The jagged end of the rock struck a leaping koi on its ruffled crown-fin with enough force to send it wheeling.

The lost opportunity saddened Gohan, but augured well for future nights. "I hope you didn't kill the poor thing, there."

"Aw, he's alright. Just a little set on edge." Or so he hoped.

"Look at how wonky he's swimming now."

"Don't worry. He'll regather his equilibrium in no time—see?" Goku placed his fifth rock down as more colored carp trapezed into the foggy air.

The koi twirled up in perfect arches, save for the one that swam in groggy circles along the shallow end of the pool, evidently still tottering and dizzy from its collision with the missile. In a squat position Gohan lowered his chin upon his knees, watching the fish fling themselves like arabesque dancers in a jocund frenzy.

"So we'll make it fair tonight."

Gohan laughed and rubbed his face into his knees. "You're making me blush, Dad."

Goku's eyes sparkled at the bashfulness of his teenaged son.

Peeking through his spiky fringe, Gohan cried, "You like seeing me this way—don't you!"

He sniggered.

"You're such a—" Halting on the insult, he smiled, all at once realizing that it only meant that he had effectively done the impossible—that he had won the entirety of his father's heart. Instead, he amended with, "I love you."

Goku threw in three more stones, skillfully avoiding the school of capering carp. He gathered himself off the grass and peat, then yanked the young man upright close against him. He embraced his son so near that their faces leaned together.

Through the clog of fog, Goku's breezy smile gravitated nearer, lower, lingering at a circumscribed distance where he might speak confidentially to his son, without drowning in his fragrant air like a lush in love. He whispered near against his mouth, and held him very dearly. "These thoughts are all of a sudden in my head. I want touch your soul." His son's breath shivered on the way out in surprise at his remark. "I want to make you laugh, and smile, and moan in that pretty way that you did last night. I'm not the best with words, but these are the thoughts I'm having now. My heart is sick in need of you. I can't make the damned thing be still. It won't stop beating."

"I think a beating heart is a good thing, Daddy." Gohan simpered awkwardly. "Don't make me go through losing you again."

"I promise, I'll do my best to stay alive. And I'll never make you cry, ever again. At least, not on purpose." He smiled teasingly, knowing how quick his son could crash to tears. "I can't control how you get when you're feeling something strong, but I think you know well what I mean."

Gohan laughed, feeling heat behind his eyes already. "I suppose that I cry a lot."

"Hm. You _suppose."_

Gohan bent his chin up slightly, perking his lips a bit in invitation.

Tempted by their bidding, Goku listed nearer, being generously reminded of their soothing succulence. Settling one palm firmly over his son's rounded bottom, squeezing gently and affectionately, Goku kissed, and prodded his tongue against the seam of his closed lips until they split apart and let him in.

The boy thrust himself upward onto his toes, meeting his father's lips and tongue with a snatching of his own. Blooming into a fine red glow in his soft cheeks, Gohan clutched at Goku's gi front wantingly, panting heavy, slickening his father's lips with a slow swiping of his tongue. Gohan boldly demonstrated himself to his father, but then swooned in his embrace when they finally came apart for air.

"You're adorable, Gohan. Really. You've always been."

The hot grating of his father's guttural voice made his cock leap happy with sweet yearning. He could feel Goku's eyes drinking in the love-battered sight of him. Gohan whimpered, "Daddy, please." He did not need to explicitly define with words his lust-languishing request; Goku could already feel him pressed and growing hard between the legs.

It pained him to decline. "I'm afraid we can't right now."

Failing to conceal the irritation caused by that refusal, Gohan demanded for his excuse.

"We have to go home now."

"Why!"

"So you won't get in trouble with your mother if she finds out that you're gone," he tried to reason.

"Piss on trouble." Eyes fluttering in a voluptuous daze, he muttered, "You're more than worth the trouble."

"Tonight."

"Daddy, I'm hard _now."_

Grinding his teeth at that persuasive argument, he swallowed and then stammered, "If you get in trouble, she'll ground you for a real long time, and I won't get to take you anywhere with me once she sees you're well again. I'd rather wait a few anxious hours than lose out on all that."

Gohan subsided, dispirited by all the constant waiting.

"Come." Taking both the boy's hands in his own, he kissed the whitened knucklebones and peered down at him with amiable eyes. "Let's go home."

* * *

"Didn't think I'd find out about you running off with your father again, did you?" she inquired. ChiChi draped a wet cloth over his forehead, frowning sternly.

Flood full of guilt, Gohan never turned his face on her.

With her usual air of disapproval, she fixed a cup of piping tea at his bed side, dolloped a spoonful of melting honey in it, then clinked an arrangement of other plain foods besides. "Here I sit at home, just slaving away for you both, and thanklessly no less."

"We're very grateful, Mom. Honest." He couldn't bear to look at her.

She frowned at his avoidance. "It hardly appears that way," she opined. "Now, drink your tea."

Beyond the door, his father and brother could be overheard tussling upon the floor. Goku hollered, and Goten made a sound of blowing raspberries, as if to rile the man in their rowdy bout.

Hearing them made ChiChi smile. "You boys," she said, more to herself than her hale son. "It's always the same with all three of you. Nothing but childish trouble-makers." She stroked Gohan's hair and smiled endearingly on him. "What would you three do without a mature woman's touch? I daresay turn feral into apes."

"Am I in trouble, Mom?" he asked with eyes averted.

"No. You won't be in trouble _this_ time." She unlatched the windows and threw them each wide open. "Next time, if you want fresh air, you can get plenty from where you are right now. No need to elope with Goku to your secret hideouts, wherever those are nowadays. At least not until your better again."

Gohan flustered at her unfortunate way of phrasing.

"Would you like some soup?"

Looking at the flavorless plates piled at his bedside, he scowled, then nodded.

There came the sound of an explosion, followed by Goku's panicked cries of privy guilt. "Oh, no! I didn't think you would be able to perform that one already. Geez, ChiChi's gonna kill me! What do I do? Maybe if I stand very tall and still right in front of it she won't even notice. Oh, _man_! Look at the size of it!"

Sucking in her lip, ChiChi stormed out of the room. "Goku, what is going on? _Ahh!_ What happened to the wall!"

"Uhm—_uh_—you see." Goku fumbled for the words, but nothing could be less incriminating than the truth. "I kinda taught our son how to do a teeny, tiny Kamehameha."

Gohan snickered into his palms at his father's reluctant, yet comical, report.

"You call this great big hole in the wall _tiny_?! I can feel the North Winds blasting!" Apparently, even though winter was long gone, and the weather was sedate.

"Oh. Well I guess it _is_ rather un-small." Goku laughed nervously, then gulped as ChiChi shrilled into a rage.

"Mommy, mommy, you should have seen it! I'm really strong like Daddy! Kamehame-_boom_! _Hah-hah!_" Goten wiggled all about, clapping and cackling in innocent amusement.

The cheerful outpouring of the self-proud child was put to an abrupt end upon the cracking sound of a severe slap. Red-faced, Goten squealed into a fit of miserable confusion.

Gohan bolt straight from the bed.

That alone should have been enough to bewilder the teen, since—even in her deranged course of sweeping tempers—ChiChi had never struck the little boy before; but then, to further complete his shock, Gohan heard his father reprimanding her. Accourding to Goku, Goten was guilty of nothing more than a shining precocity that merely attested to his Saiyan blood.

Stunned by the novelty of her husband's rebuke, ChiChi sneered into his face and dared him—with the blackest of her ire—to defy her rule.

Goku stood in front of the squat child, stepping him out of striking range. ChiChi advanced on them, a bellicose fire guttering meanly within the black coals of her eyes. He squared on her. "You will not touch him again."

"I am allowed to punish my children however I see fit, Goku. Don't you _dare_ tell me what I can and cannot do within my own house, do you hear?"

"But he didn't do anything worth getting beaten for. It was my fault."

"Insufferable!" she screamed, crackling her fists, infuriated at his contraventions. "You have always taken the blame for _everything_, Goku—it's maddening how good you are! How else is the boy supposed to learn responsibility without my chastising him like a mother should? Give him over."

"You're out of your mind if you think that our little boy could understand the intent behind the cruelty you inflict. What he did was an accident of _my_ own doing. If you're going to hit anyone, let it be me."

"Accident!" she scoffed. "And what do you call your disappearing for months on end, leaving me here all alone to wait and worry and clean house? You are an idiotic oaf, Goku! Nothing but an alien—oh, why—_why_—did I ever pursue to marry you? What did I see in you other than your brawn and good looks? You're such a disgrace to family living that I cannot think now what I must have been thinking to ever fall for you. You're nothing, Goku, nothing but an uncaring, stupid monster!"

He released the sobbing child, and in one hasty motion had ChiChi by the shoulders, with his fingers digging in. He refrained from shaking her for the affront done, but her abuse boiled his blood nonetheless until he seethed full with vexation. Goku reviled her cross slander, but was able to subdue the bleaker emotions probing him. No matter how evil her posturing, ChiChi was no villain to be vanquished; she was just a bitter broad fettered to a loveless marriage, grown frigid by his consistent matrimonial indifference. But she had smacked his youngest son directly upon his sweetly smiling face—an act that he would not easily forgive.

She cowed at Goku's show strength.

Upon noticing her fright, he loosened the unyielding grip by a small fraction. Still, she grimaced with discomfort, but he knew for sure she wasn't hurting, only acting otherwise. After regaining his self-governance, Goku perused her tear-warped countenance. And he spoke low enough, so that neither Goten or Gohan could have overheard a word he said. "ChiChi, I never asked for this. I didn't even understand what marriage was, yet still you tied me in its snare. Maybe if I had understood—maybe if I learned to love you in return—things would be much different from how they've turned out now. But things are as they are, and there's nothing we can do to change the current state of things. Beyond my basic need to defend this world from the devils that beset it, my sons are my _world_. They do not deserve to be hit by a bully like yourself. Think about it, ChiChi: I spend my years battling tyrants of the universe, only to have to put up with it here. Your violence, your insults, have only provoked me beyond my ability to endure it any longer. And then, to treat me like that in their presence—you'd have done better to corner me in the privacy of our bedroom with your derisions, as is usual of your ways.

"ChiChi, the wall can be repaired. But do you even know what it means to me to see Goten's talent flourishing before my own eyes? You would hardly take notice of how proud I am of him—for all your worthless obsession with normality and domestic despotism."

He assumed an expression of sincere consideration. "Hell. Even if I loved you before, how could I love you still?—after all that's occurred between us, especially since I've come home. You've kept expecting me to love you, and then when it was clear that I did not... you railed me for it. This is why I was reluctant in the first place to return from Otherworld. If this is you, this is nothing that I would have ever asked for. You are not the sort of woman I ever would have had an eye for. For everything you've done, for your berating me in private, and now your turning on our Goten over something we should celebrate?—I could never have more feelings for you beyond what I do."

Having been habituated to his complacence and resign—she had never expected an insurgence—all she could do was manifest her extreme shock with a pitiable contortion of her face. "Look at how you treat a lady," she spat, wriggling her shoulders in contest. "And you think yourself so gentle. You've always been a goon. Arrogant man! Let me go!"

He released her, holding his tongue. ChiChi was raving, and there was nothing more that he could say if she was inclined to only assault him with insults.

"Coward!" she accused, and then commenced to flogging him with her fists. Goku did nothing to retaliate, but fixed her with an impassive stare. ChiChi back-handed him with a vigor that proved less than adequate against his steel-like structure. The bone in her hand cracked on the impact. She stilled, then crumpled to the floor, huddling into herself, weeping sorely against the broken components of her dainty hand.

Gohan stood amazed at the threshold. Goten blubbered in white horror.

"I will never hurt you, ChiChi, no matter how you put me down," Goku reaffirmed in a softer voice. "But I'll never let you hurt our sons without a given, well-thought reason. I don't even care if you're unable to cause physical pain to them, for all your limitations. The fact is, Goten's heart is confused now, only because you've acted such a bully to him for seemingly no reason."

"So you can beat on Gohan until he's near to death—just to make him _Super Saiyan_—but I can't hit either of them as punishment?" She sobbed in a voice that throbbed as if it had been crammed up full with glass. "You aren't human—you're a troll! Don't you understand my motives yet, Goku? I don't want my little boys to be like you!"

Quailed helplessly against the corner of the main-room, Goten stood, witness to the entire showcasing of marital dissension. But then, his father arrested his mother into his arms. ChiChi flayed him with more words of scorn and contempt, peeling into gasping cries of execrations. But he held her still, only in the attempt to calm her down.

Gohan drowned out the din beneath a mound of pillows, feeling wet and stung about the eyes.

Eventually, ChiChi wrested herself free. Goku looked at her in compunction, for the damage done by her own bone-crushing blow. "You are not human," she repeated in a seizure of panic.

It was true, after all. Goku didn't gainsay.

Turning from him, she shouted for her father, who stood eavesdropping in another room in fearful vigilance. ChiChi flurried out of the front door to the house, crying out, "Take me to the city! I've injured myself bludgeoning that monster. I need a doctor." Wearied from weeping, she trembled and embraced herself in the midst of the cool breeze and passing fog.

The Ox King glanced warily at Goku as he passed to the outdoors. Goku stood still, brow knit with mixed concern and nauseation. ChiChi rounded about-face as her father left the house with convulsing knees. Mustering enough strength, she slammed the door behind them, splintering the hinges apart in their wood-tacked frame.


End file.
